Even The Score
by Teleryn
Summary: Six months after the victorious strike, Jack and the newsies are carrying the banner as usual. But when they get word that The Journal's circulation is outdoing The World again, everyone becomes suspicious. They catch a mysterious stranger carrying copies of The Journal. Who is their leader, and what do they want? The answers are definitely not what they expect...
1. Sure Beats Washing Dishes

**Even The Score**

**Chapter One**

**Sure Beats Washing Dishes**

'_This is to even the score/This ain't just Newsies no more…'_

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the newsies. They belong to History/ Disney.

Jack Kelly sauntered down the cool skin of the sidewalk.

'Winter ain't waitin' no more,' he said to no one in particular, as a gust of October wind smacked him across the face. Dry brown and orange leaves skittered around his feet.

'Dontcha just want to dive into that?' said Boots, gazing dreamily at a healthy leaf pile getting swept into place by street cleaners. He tipped his cap at them, as did most of the newsies, as a good morning gesture.

'Careful now Boots,' said Racetrack in between puffs of his morning cigar. 'You're so short we'd probably never find you again.'

'Ha. Ha. You always this funny in the morning?'

'It's a full-time occupation.'

'When you ain't losin' bets, that is,' muttered Skittery, just loud enough for Race to hear and sock him on the nose.

'Ow! What is it wit' you and my schnoz?'

'Just keepin' it outta my business,' replied Race.

It was very much a typical morning. Six months on from the strike and business had largely settled back down to the familiar routine: early rise, queue up and collect, carry the banner, exist. Only now Jack was relieved of Snyder's shadow, and had gained David as a new best friend. Granted, the boy was now back at school, but he spent every moment of free time outside of it to see the newsies, and was still able to sell on weekends, with Les, just before synagogue. It was the ideal compromise.

The gates of The World swung open to greet its distributors, and Jack headed straight for the front desk, a route he knew so well he could sleepwalk it.

'How ya doin' Weas?'

'Same as I was yesterday, Cowboy,' came the surly reply. 'Nah, don't tell me -' He held up a hand to the grille. '- hundred papes.'

'You know me too well, Weasel.'

'Unfortunately,' he muttered, slamming the thick stack of broadsheets onto the wood. 'Go on, get outta here. Next!'

'Heya Mr. Wiesel,' beamed Crutchy. Jack shook his head. That boy could smile at Ebenezer Scrooge, for pete's sake.

'Morning Crutchy.' Wiesel made an expression that could in a certain light pass for a grin, but only because this was the only newsboy in Manhattan to pronounce his name correctly. 'Twenty papes? Or can I convince ya to take thirty?'

'Hm, I do like a challenge,' mused Crutchy. 'How's about twenty-five?'

'Twenty-five for Crutchy!'

'Any reason you want me to take more, Mr. Wiesel?' he asked, balancing his more modest stack on one forearm.

'Well, to tell ya the truth…' Wiesel paused to cup his hand around his permanent five o'clock shadow. 'Actually, all a' youse listen up! Hey, shut up a sec!'

The chattering newsies begrudgingly piped down. Jack frowned.

'I wanna see more papes picked up, and more effort bein' put into sellin' 'em. I have word from Mr. Pulitzer himself,' (he stopped for a moment to bask in this privilege) 'that The Journal's circulation is starting to go up again. And he don't like it.'

For once Jack paid attention. He and the other newsies exchanged uneasy glances. Pulitzer may have given in to their demands once, but no doubt he was still as competitive as ever with rival publications. The last thing Jack wanted was to go through another ordeal.

'Did Joe mention why the Journal's doin' better?' asked Jack.

'I'll be frank with ya, Cowboy,' said Wiesel. 'I don't think even he knows. He's seen the problem, but not the cause, so the general order is to outsell Hearst by hand.'

'Huh,' was all Jack had to say to that. 'Sorry Crutchy,' he added, noticing he was blocking the boy's way. The queue continued to move.

'How're the headlines?' asked Mush, sitting next to Jack as they perused the merchandise.

'We've struck lucky: South Africa Boer Republic Declares War on England.'

'Are you serious?' said Mush, excitedly turning the pages. 'We got an actual war? Yes!'

'Hey Jack,' said Swifty, tapping the leader on his shoulder. 'I just thought a' something.'

'What is it, Swift?'

'Well, wit' The Journal and all…what's the one thing Pulitzer and Hearst still don't care enough about to know what's goin' on?'

Jack and the surrounding newsies thought, before shrugging.

'Us,' declared Swifty. 'The newsies. Includin' the ones sellin' The Journal. What if they're gettin' extra help?'

'More newsies on the other paper?' said Race. 'Makes sense.'

'Well what're we supposed to do about it?' asked Skittery in his usual acerbic way. 'We can sell out with today's headline, but what about on the worse days? Then it's outta our hands.'

'Yeah, what if Pulitzer tries somethin' on us again?' said Boots, concerned. Fifteen heads turned to Jack. He shook his head in the most reassuring way possible.

'Pulitzer? Bah, after what we put him through, he ain't gonna be dumb enough to try jackin' up the price again.'

'If you say so, Jack,' said Crutchy, albeit with a hint of uncertainty in his voice.

'C'mon, let's get sellin' before the morning's out,' said Blink loudly, stirring the boys into leaving for the streets. The sun shone bright in their eyes, but without much warmth.

'Ooh, right on time…' announced Snoddy, whipping his newsie hat off faster than a dog chasing its tail. The others quickly followed suit: a pretty young schoolgirl, in a respectable uniform with a straw hat and dark blue book, walked past the newsie crew, as she did every morning, like clockwork. She half-played their game of flirtation, granting a side-glance and a smile to a different newsboy each time. Dutchy practically sank into the sidewalk when she looked his way.

'I want to put her in a picture frame and hang her in the lodging house,' sighed Specs.

'I second that,' said Race. Jack chuckled, before locking eyes with someone else: a slim boy of medium-height with a bundle of papes under his arm, following shortly behind the schoolgirl. The meeting of eyes was completely unintentional and, from the resulting expression on the boy's face, unwelcome. He ducked his green peepers back to the sidewalk, shielding his face by tilting his cap. He upped his pace.

'Well he ain't a mornin' person,' commented Race.

'Who?' asked Dutchy, emerging from his reverie. Race pointed at the retreating figure.

'That guy.'

The newsies looked, with accompanying mutters of 'ain't seen him round here before' and 'who is that?'

'First time I seen him,' said Jack.

'Oh, I recognize that kid,' piped up Crutchy. 'He's been walkin' past here for the last week. But he ain't usually so close to the goil.'

'So you know who he is?' asked Jack.

'No,' replied Crutchy. 'I've tried saying hello a few times, but he just disappears into the crowds. Don't interact wit' no one. In fact…'

The newsies craned their necks to listen as Crutchy had something of an epiphany.

'…That's the first time I noticed what papes he was carryin'. The Journal!'

'Holy Moses, the guy's part of the problem!' exclaimed Racetrack.

'Guess you was right, Swifty,' said Mush. 'The Journal's been recruitin'.'

'We gotta even the score,' said Boots. 'Or it's our heads on the line.'

'We don't know that, Boots,' clarified Jack, although the suspicious looks the newsies were casting in the kid's direction quickly indicated that he was wasting his time.

'Something's gotta be done,' decided Blink. 'What do you say, Jack?'

Once again Jack was pushed onto the leader's pedestal. He chewed the inside of his lip.

'I s'pose we should keep an eye out tomorrow mornin',' he said. 'Maybe, y'know, intercept this kid and ask who he's with.'

'What if he don't talk so easy?' asked Race.

'Jack, I don't want us to soak nobody,' said Crutchy, nervousness etched onto his otherwise cheery face.

'Well, I don't neither,' said Jack. Crutchy exhaled in relief. 'But,' he qualified, raising an eyebrow at the other newsies, 'he don't need to know that.'


	2. Tomorrow's News

**Chapter Two**

**Tomorrow's News**

**Disclaimer: **I really don't miss doing these disclaimers…I don't own the newsies, as strangely cool as that would be.

The next morning, the Manhattan newsies got up with a fresh alertness and drive not seen in them since the strike. Kloppman didn't know whether to be amazed or baffled.

'Aw, the leaf pile's gone.' Boots mourned the loss of a potential distraction in the middle of the road.

'I'm sure there's plenty more where that came from,' noted Bumlets, nodding at the increasingly bare trees on the way to the printing press.

'You sure he always come's at the same time?' asked Jack.

'I think so,' said Crutchy, craning his neck into the street. 'Just keep an eye out for the lady and he should be there.'

'Oh, I intend to, don't you worry,' smirked Racetrack.

All of them fidgeting more than usual, the boys lined up to get their papes.

'You all got itchin' powder in yer caps or something?' sneered Wiesel.

'Nah,' replied Boots smoothly as he swept his thirty papes off the counter. 'We'se just, uh, watching for leaves.'

This cryptic remark left Wiesel understandably confused, but he carried on with his job regardless, until the last newsie (Tumbler) had received their day's worth.

The boys loitered in a huddle outside the gates, just like any other day, but with a great deal more anxiety thrown into the mix. When the schoolgirl breezed past, she was a little thrown by the fact that her glance at that day's newsie, Skittery, went unnoticed. Half of them still tipped their caps, but the others had their eyes fixed like hawks on the person they were really interested in.

'Play it nonchalant now,' Jack muttered to his friends out of the boy's earshot. 'Let him walk past, then we'll get started.'

The unknown newsie sensed something wasn't quite right that morning as soon as they reached the gates of The World. Normally the Manhattan newsies would barely notice their presence on the street, but this time, every pair of eyes followed the stranger.

Torn between paranoia and the need to remain inconspicuous, the newsie let their eyes wander to the right. Suspicions confirmed, they walked a little faster, resisting the temptation to look back.

Wordlessly, Jack beckoned for five other newsies to follow him: Racetrack, Blink, Mush, Skittery and Snitch. They kept a few yards' distance between themselves and the boy.

After twenty seconds, he took a risk and looked over his shoulder. Immediately his green eyes went wide in alarm and his head snapped back. He broke into brisk strides and started weaving in and out of other pedestrians. This didn't deter the newsies, however, as they just matched his pace.

Another ten seconds, another backwards glance. The newsies had closed the gap considerably. Blink suggestively pushed one fist into an open palm, and that was all it took for the boy to drop all pretensions: he bolted down the sidewalk, pushing past businessmen with early starts and street vendors hawking their wares. The newsies followed suit.

Jack was well versed in the art of running away speedily, and chasing was not so different. With a bit of extra effort he soon caught up to the boy, enough to swing round and block his path entirely.

'Why the rush?' he panted. The newsie, startled, skidded into Jack's chest and took a fall. Copies of The Journal for that day flew into the air and landed in a messy spiral around them.

Flustered, the kid grabbed as many papes back as he could while on his knees. However, they froze mid-reach when a pair of worn leather shoes entered their vision. With a trembling jaw, the boy's eyes travelled upwards to the tall newsie in those shoes: a blond guy with an eye patch and a terrifyingly sly grin.

He shot up from the sidewalk and moved to bypass Jack. But, to his horror, Skittery stood in his way, string arms folded across his body. The newsie whirled around in a circle and quickly clocked that they were surrounded. Their free hand shivered violently, even when clenched in a fist.

'Why'd ya run?' asked Jack casually.

The kid opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.

''Cause you don't wanna be seen by us, am I right?'

The boy tried to take on a steely expression and continued to say nothing.

'Rumor in the printin' press says The Journal's circulation's goin' up,' said Jack, nodding at the crinkled papes tucked under the boy's left arm. 'But not even Pulitzer 'imself seems to know the reason. Only logical conclusion's that The Journal's gettin' more newsies than The World. Am I wrong?'

Impressively, the newsie held Jack's gaze for longer than he expected. At last he found his voice and used it to spit out four words:

'It's a free country.'

'May be a free country, kid,' chimed Racetrack. The boy glared. 'But it ain't fair game, at least not fer us.'

'Well…don't see how that's my problem,' said the boy, a little more boldly. Jack noticed he had a drawl not unlike Race's, but with an extra twang of something he couldn't identify.

'If ya don't work wit' us here,' said Skittery. 'We'll make it your problem.'

'Slow down, Skitts,' said Jack. 'Let's just take it easy.' He turned back to the boy. 'You got a name, kid?'

His eyes darted from left to right, debating whether it was wise to disclose that information.

'…Streets.'

'Streets. Well listen, Streets, who'd ya work with, or for? If there's a leader in this operation, we gotta know.'

'Why? Why should I tell ya?'

'Oh, so there _is_ a leader,' smirked Jack. The newsies laughed when Streets' face blanched.

'I ain't tellin' ya nothing, ya hear?'

'I really don't think that's an option you got, kid,' retorted Racetrack.

'What're you gonna do? Soak me? Well…go ahead,' said Streets, in a tone that would have been more convincing had his whole right arm not been shaking. 'I can survive a few bruised ribs and a black eye, but I ain't rattin' nobody out.'

'You sure about that?' said Jack evenly.

'Yeah.' With that, Streets tried ramming himself through the gap between Skittery and Blink. It didn't work: Blink snatched up Streets' free arm and twisted it round his back. The Journal copies slipped onto the ground again.

'_Ow_!'

The six newsies did a double take at the high-pitched squeak Streets had just managed to hit.

'I think my eardrums are ruptured,' said Snitch dryly. Jack narrowed his eyes and took a step closer to the restrained Streets. He suddenly noticed a long, thick strand of black hair had come loose from under the boy's cap. Without really thinking about it, Jack swiped the hat from Streets' head.

None of them had expected a long plait to fall from it.

For three very long seconds the seven of them were frozen in a tableau: Jack, clutching Streets' cap; Blink, staring down at Streets' arm; Race, Skittery, Mush and Snitch rooted to the sidewalk, dumbstruck; Streets, mortified.

'What…in the name a' Horace Greenley…is this.'

'I think that's what we'd all like ta know, Race,' mumbled Jack. Blink relinquished Streets, who dropped to the ground rubbing her arm.

'Ooh, that's gonna smart tomorrow…'

She directed her green, angry gaze towards Jack's hand, still holding her cap. As she went to snatch it back, Jack shot his arm over his head, way out of her reach even on tiptoes.

'Give it!'

'So this is yer real voice, huh?' scoffed Jack.

'I said give it, ya scum!'

'Oh, I don't think so,' he replied, tossing the cap to Snitch. Streets darted for it, but he chucked it to Skittery, who threw it to Mush, and so on. Watching the girl get riled up was more than a little entertaining.

Finally she returned to the middle of the circle, fuming.

'What's it gonna take?'

'All you gotta do is tell us who yer leader is. I ain't exactly askin' ya to build the Pyramids, here.'

She balled her fists and blew the hanging hair strand out of her face, exasperated. Eventually, through gritted teeth, she caved:

'Ace.'

'Sorry, I didn't quite hear ya,' said Jack.

'_Ace_. Ace Heximer.'

'Any a' youse heard that name before?'

The newsies shook their heads.

'Strange name,' remarked Racetrack.

'Strange girl,' muttered Streets, before cursing under her breath.

'Wait,' said Blink. 'Yer leader's a goil too? This I gotta see.'

'Not a bad idea, Blink,' said Jack, raising an eyebrow. 'Here's a deal for ya, Streets: you take us to meet Ace, you get your hat back and we'll, uh, hold off from soakin' ya.'

'And if I don't like the sound a' that deal?'

'Then I'd be more than happy to make your gender known to the streets a' Manhattan, at the top of my lungs, right here, right now.'

He had her there. Streets took a long blink and half-sighed, half-growled.

'Damn. You. I'll go along wit' yer stupid little deal.'

'Good girl.' Jack couldn't resist. Streets didn't appreciate the jibe one bit. The second he lowered his arm within her reach, she tore the cap from his grasp, gathered up her hair and stuck it firmly under.

'One condition, though.'

'What's that?'

'Ya can't all come with. Ace won't talk if there's six of ya.'

'And if there's three?'

'…She might.'

'Alright, I'll give ya that. Who wants ta join me?'

'Well where's this leader a' yours based, anyhow?' asked Racetrack.

'Ya know Riverside Park?' said Streets over her shoulder.

'I know of it.'

'We're near there.'

'Aw, Jack that's miles away…' groaned Skittery.

'So don't go, ya grouser,' said Jack. 'Any takers?'

'Yeah, I'll go,' said Mush without hesitation.

'Me too,' said Race. He looked Streets up and down. 'You got some nerve, goil. Dressin' like a guy, it's obscene…who d'you think you are?'

'Better than you,' snapped Streets, before adding, 'ya little shrimp.'

'_Watch it_.' Racetrack did not take kindly to jokes about his height and lack thereof.

'Skittery, Snitch, Blink, report back to the other guys and tell 'em we'll be back by the end a' the day.'

'Sure Jack,' said Blink. 'But what about all yer papes?'

'Don't worry about that,' he said, hauling his stack over his shoulder. 'If it's a long way to Riverside, we'll just be productive about it.'

He slung his free arm around Streets. It had the desired effect of making her instantly uncomfortable, and he steered her forward. Jack motioned for Mush and Race to follow, and the other newsies headed back towards the collection point.

'Extra, extra! Hundreds already dead in Boer War, complete with horrifying photographs!'

'Huh?' said Streets, looking up at the front page. 'What photo -'

'Don't interrupt him, doll,' interrupted Racetrack with a finger to her lips. 'This is the expert at truth improvement ya got next to you.'


	3. Living Chancy

**Chapter Three**

**Living Chancy**

**Disclaimer: No but seriously…just see previous. Also, all OCs are my own.**

'Job well done, boys,' said Jack proudly, as he sold his last paper. The four of them had been walking, according to Streets' sulky direction, for the better part of an hour.

'We almost there, kid?' grumbled Racetrack. He was hankering after a cigar, but his box was back at the lodging house.

'It's just down at the end of this dock,' replied Streets, still being steered by Jack's hand on her shoulder. 'And, in all seriousness, stop callin' me 'kid'. I bet I'm older than you anyway.'

'I'm sixteen.'

'…Damn it.'

Race cackled to himself.

'Hey Jack,' said Mush, casting his gaze down the dock. 'Look.'

Where wood met water stood a derelict fishing shack that, from the outside, had generous amounts of space. Two strangers, dressed in newsie attire, loitered outside the entrance, engaged in conversation. As Jack and the others approached, one of them took notice and tapped their partner urgently on the shoulder.

'Streets?' said one, with wide, bright eyes and curves in the right places. 'What's goin' on?'

'Slight mishap during collection,' replied Streets, looking ashamed. 'These guys had me surrounded, there was nothin' I could do. But I didn't talk…much.'

'Who are you?' asked the other newsie, shorter, but with muscular arms. 'What do you want?'

'We noticed yer friend here,' said Jack. 'Carryin' copies a' The Journal past our collection point. Normally not a crime in itself, but it's causin' us some grief. I wanna speak to the lady in charge. Y'know, Ace?'

Their jaws fell open at the same time.

'Wait - how?'

'They found me out,' sighed Streets, removing her cap to supplement her point.

'Aw, man,' groaned the bright-eyed one with a shake of the head. They both seemed to accept defeat on this matter and, to the mild surprise of the boys, took off their own caps. A dirty blonde ponytail and a bob of dark brown hair fell past the girls' ears.

'Ace ain't gonna be happy,' muttered the brunette. 'Not a bit.'

'So she around?' said Jack. He tried peering into the open doorway of the shack, but it was shadowy inside.

'Who wants to know?'

All heads turned to the door. A long forearm emerged from the darkness and rested flat against the wooden frame. What the arm was attached to remained a faint silhouette.

'The World,' said Race before Jack could answer.

'Pun intended?' asked the sardonic voice. Fingers drummed against the doorframe.

'Maybe if ya step out here you might recognize me. Jack Kelly.'

The drumming stopped. A gust of cold air from the Hudson rustled their clothes. Jack, Mush and Race waited for five tense seconds, trying to put a face to the voice.

One leg emerged, then the other, suited in men's pants. Daylight revealed a long neck and olive skin stretched over high cheekbones. A black newsie cap sat atop a head of brown hair, which stopped at shoulders covered by a white shirt and black waistcoat.

The first thing they all noticed, and hadn't expected, was her height. She easily matched Jack's height and towered over Racetrack, who actually found himself taking a half step backwards.

The second thing they noticed was her eyes: two dark, blunt stones with a stare so hard a person could break glass on it. They gave Jack a once-over.

'Jack Kelly? Leader of the newsboy strike Jack Kelly?'

'The same,' he said, hiding a smirk.

'Well now we have a face to the legend. To what do I owe this honor?'

'You're Ace Heximer. Leader of these goils?'

'Of sorts,' she replied, crossing her arms. 'Before this conversation goes any further, let my friend go.'

'Oh.' Jack looked at Streets, having forgotten she was there in the first place. 'Sure.'

He released her shoulder, which she made a point of rotating and rubbing angrily.

'The noive…' she muttered.

'You all with the Journal?' asked Jack, holding her stare.

'Mostly The Journal, although sometimes we dabble in other publications, keep things interestin'.'

'Well, see, I wouldn't have a problem wit' that if you weren't boostin' The Journal's circulation so much. Joe Pulitzer don't like it when rivals outdo him, and, as I'm sure you're aware, last spring he took it out on us. Now we may have showed him what's what, but this is one volatile character we're talkin' about. He might try some other trick.'

' "Volatile"…I didn't expect you to be so literate.'

'Comes with the job.'

'Where did you say youse was from?'

'He didn't,' said Race. 'We've come from one end a' Manhattan to the other.'

'Right. And I should care about this so-called problem because…?'

'Because we newsies gotta look out fer each other,' said Jack. 'Or did ya miss that part a' the strike?'

'I was busy wit' my own life, thank you very much. Look, I appreciate your trekking all the way over here, but I don't think this discussion's gonna go anywhere, so good day.'

With that, Ace turned on the heel of her leather brogues and moved to retreat back into the darkness.

'We ain't done talkin', Ace.'

'Well she is,' interjected the other brunette newsie. She put up a hand to block Jack's way, but he pushed past and called out while Ace was still on the dock:

'Y'know, society don't take too kindly to goils masqueradin' as guys. The bulls, especially.'

That got her attention. She stopped dead on the threshold and, slowly, turned back to glare at Jack.

'What are you implying?'

'All it takes is one tip-off from us,' said Jack casually. 'And at best, you'll end up in The Refuge. All a' youse.'

She was cornered, and they both knew it. Facing him fully, Ace's hands drew themselves into fists. Her dark eyes simmered with fury.

'What's it gonna take to ensure that never happens?'

'Not much, you'll be glad to hear,' said Jack. 'I'm thinkin' negotiations are in order, to make sure we all understand each other. This ain't just an issue that affects us, after all. I gotta think of the other boroughs too - Harlem, Queens, the Bronx, the Battery, Brooklyn…'

'Brooklyn?' Her voice sharpened.

'Ah,' piped up Mush. 'So you've heard a' Spot Conlon too, then?'

'Yeah, I've heard his name thrown around a couple a' times. Let me get this straight, Kelly - you want me to join you and the newsie leaders for a chat?'

'If ya wanna call it that, then yes,' said Jack, raising an eyebrow. 'Do that, and I can easily keep your crew's secret. How many a' youse are there, anyhow?'

Ace narrowed her eyes, on edge about giving an answer. Reluctantly, she uttered:

'Eight. Myself included.'

'Eight?' Jack repeated. No wonder Streets didn't want the other boys coming along - they would have been a threat in numbers.

'You got a problem wit' that?'

'No, no problem there,' said Jack. Mush and Race shook their heads in agreement. 'So, we got a deal?'

Ace took the time to look at each of her three newsies. They seemed acquiescent, but still uncomfortable.

'When and where?'

Jack made something up on the spot:

'Irving Hall, tomorrow at four. The place'll be empty, and I know people who can let us in.'

'You got that?' Ace said to her friends, pointing at each of them. They nodded. 'I want you to remember in case something happens to me.'

'Whaddya think's gonna happen?' asked Race.

'I just like preparin' for all eventualities,' she replied evenly.

'Ok?' said Jack. He spat in his palm and held it out to her. For a second, from the way her eyes travelled to his hand, Jack thought she'd pull a David and not do it.

But, indifferently, she reciprocated. The two leaders had a brief staring contest as they exchanged spit and skin. He was stronger, but Jack granted that Ace had a tough grip for a girl.

'Deal,' they both announced.

'C'mon Race, Mush, let's get back to Duane Street. Nice meetin' ya,' Jack added, nodding at the three other newsies.

The Riverside Girls stayed where they were, hair getting brushed by the river breeze, until the Manhattan newsies were out of sight.

'Should we tell the others?' asked Madison, the bright-eyed blonde.

'When they're back from sellin', yes,' replied Ace.

'Jack Kelly…' said Rich, the brunette, to herself. 'Didn't expect that when I woke up this mornin'.'

**A/N: **Wait until tomorrow to find out how the meeting goes…In the meantime, please make my day by reviewing in the box below :) If I'm entertaining you, if you think I suck, or if you want to fangirl about your favourite newsie, I'm all ears! (metaphorically, of course)


	4. And The World Will See

**Chapter Four**

**And The World Will See**

**Disclaimer: Regardez le premier page, s'il vous plaît.**

**A/N: Congrats to LovesBrooklyn for being awesome and reviewing, not once, but twice ^_^ Review now and you'll get a shout-out too!**

'Jacky boy, I hope for your sake that I didn't come all the way down here for nuttin'.'

The Manhattan leader felt anxiety creeping up his veins. He should have got a more concrete guarantee from Ace that she would actually show up. After all, he didn't know her, she didn't know him - where on earth did trust come into the equation?

He paced around the empty floor surrounding Medda's stage. She'd gladly let him use the space for negotiations, but they could only stay for an hour before she had to start setting up for the evening show.

'She's only five minutes late, Spot.'

'Well, accordin' to the clock outside city hall, I'm right on time. But that's a matter of little consequence.'

Jack, Spot, and the other five newsie leaders jumped at Ace's arrival. She strode leisurely down the main aisle, towards the circular table set up for the meeting. Her hair was tucked up into her cap this time. Jack inwardly sighed with relief, but kept his face neutral. His peripheral vision caught Spot straightening up in his chair.

'Thought fer a minute there you weren't gonna show.'

'Error of judgment, Kelly,' she said, stopping at the table. 'A deal's a deal, of course I was gonna show.'

'Well, good.'

'Good.'

'Let's get down to business.'

'Yeah, let's.'

They looked at each other for a beat longer, before Jack gestured to the two chairs left at the table. They sat, and as soon as she was at their level, Ace found it impossible to ignore the burning stares, of fascination and hostility, from the other newsies present.

'First, introductions,' said Jack, pointing to each unfamiliar newsboy. 'This is Dice, representin' the Bronx; Coal, from the Battery; Steele, from Midtown; Barley, Queens; Crow, Harlem. And, last but certainly not least, Spot Conlon, Brooklyn.'

Ace's hands gripped her chair. She'd tried to work out who the infamous Spot was as soon as she walked through the door, but now that she saw him for real, she didn't know what to feel. They scrutinized each other from across the table. Ace counted to five before looking down. Her throat was dry.

'Gentlemen,' continued Jack, business-like. 'This is Ace Heximer, of…' He paused and gave her a questioning glance. 'Lower Manhattan? The Hudson?'

'Riverside,' she said. 'We'se the Riverside Girls.'

'Right. Now, seein' as you're all fellow distributors of The World, I thought it'd be in all our best interests to create a solution to the problem with The Journal. I mean, it ain't a full-blown problem _yet_,' Jack added. 'But if its circulation keeps ahead a' The World because your goils are tippin' the balance in its favor, well then we _do_ got a problem.'

'Can I say somethin'?' asked Ace. Jack swept a palm across the air: go for it. 'I am not interested in makin' life difficult for any a' youse. My friends and I are just tryin' to make a living.'

'Ain't about intentions, though,' countered Coal, a strapping, black-haired lad. 'Sounds like what you're doin' is disruptin' the natural order a' things.'

'Well what exactly do you suggest I do about it?' said Ace, spreading her arms. She looked at Jack. 'Surely you wouldn't have called for this discussion if ya didn't have at least one solution in mind?'

Jack took a moment to light a cigarette. He leaned back in his chair and exhaled a thin tunnel of smoke that diffused into the woodwork.

'Two, actually.'

'I'm listenin'.'

'Well I wanna hear what youse all think first,' said Jack to the others. 'Option one: Ace and her goils sell The World wit' us in Manhattan, re-tip the scales to work in _our_ favor.'

The newsie leaders gave consenting nods: this sounded more than reasonable.

'Simple but effective,' pronounced Spot. 'I like it.'

'I don't,' said Ace, putting her arms on the table, shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow. 'What are we, hired hands for the hired hands? Why should we be restricted by what you dictate, huh Kelly? No, no I want the Riverside Newsies to be recognized as an independent group in our own right.'

'Pretty demandin', considerin' we're the ones wit' the leverage,' commented Steele in clipped Italian tones.

'In which case…Option two,' said Jack. He should have expected her to be on the defensive, really. 'You sell for whatever papes you want, but you spread yerselves evenly across the city.'

'Then everything balances out, is that right?' said Dice.

'Exactly,' nodded Jack. He took another drag and looked at Ace. Her eyes were two dark marbles without any shine.

'Absolutely not. That - no. We ain't splittin' up, none of us.'

'Don't know what else to suggest, Ace,' said Jack, exasperated. 'Take yer pick, unless there are any other ideas, a' course.'

'Yeah, I got one,' said Spot. Everyone listened up. He threw a look of loathing in Ace's direction. 'We just save time and hand 'em over to the bulls.'

'Wait, Spot -'

'C'mon Jack, gimme a break here,' ranted the Brooklyn leader. 'I mean…this is ridiculous.' He gestured aggressively to Ace, whose nails dug into her palms. 'How am I supposed to take _this_ seriously? It's unnatural, and you all know it.'

'Oh really?' snapped Ace. 'Well you know what else is unnatural, Conlon?'

'What?'

'Gettin' your teeth knocked outta your jaw before the adult ones even come through.'

A few hushed hisses and jeers spread between the other newsie leaders. Jack watched the verbal sparring, unsure of where it would go. Spot kept his face still and leaned in closer. He and Ace stared each other down the table.

'Is that a threat?'

'Maybe it is,' said Ace, a smirk tugging one corner of her mouth. 'What's the matter, Brooklyn? Not man enough to admit that a woman might do his job as well as he does…or better?'

'That does it,' said Spot, in such quiet tones that Ace practically heard her pulse drop. He pushed his chair back, stood up slowly, and began walking her way. Jack felt rooted to his place, incapable of intervening.

Ace's eyes followed Spot around the table, alert and terrified in equal parts. Even so, doing what she did best, she kept absolutely still, not flinching when he slapped on hand on the table edge, or when put his face three inches from hers. Somewhere in her head she wondered if he could hear her heart slamming into her ribcage.

'You wanna be treated like all the other newsies, wanna be treated like a true leader?' he said evenly. Ace nodded, but not too fast.

'Then you gotta prove that weren't no empty threat - tomorrow, on the Brooklyn docks, we fight.'

'_What_?' Half the newsie leaders, Jack included, gawked at this proposal. Ace felt her face go a little paler, but she held it together. She had to.

'Spot, you ain't serious…'

'Sure I am, Cowboy,' he said, more loudly. To Ace's immense relief he stepped back from the table and her chair. He pointed a gold-tipped cane in her direction. 'She wants to be one a' the boys, then dressin' up like one ain't gonna be enough. She's gotta act like one, bleed like one.'

'You'll be the one bleeding, Conlon,' Ace spat before she could think twice. His eyes sparked.

'So we got a deal?' Like Jack, he presented a palm laced with spit. Ace stood up from her own chair, and relished the ensuing moment when Spot realized just how much height difference there was between them.

'Yeah, we got a deal.' They shook hands with as much geniality as two wolves over a single slab of meat.

'If you two are done,' interjected Jack at last. 'We still need a final resolution outside yer fist fight. Ace.'

'Yes?' she said, returning to her chair.

'How about this as a compromise, my final offer: you switch to sellin' The World…_but_,' he added, cutting off any objections before they could be formed. 'You stay in yer Riverside shack, your business is kept separate from our business, and once we pick up the day's papes, you can go as far away from us newsies as ya like.'

He waited in thick silence for a change in her expression. She blinked, but that was all.

'Together but distinct,' she stated, drumming her fingers on the tabletop.

'Yeah,' said Jack. 'Like two companies mergin', if ya will.'

She heaved a sigh of frustration, the kind a person emits when they know they're out of choices.

'Fine. Fine, for the sake of peace, I'll go along wit' this.'

'All others in favor?' Jack asked the room. Dice, Coal, Steele, Barley and Crow nodded, satisfied. Spot did too, but in his own time. 'Excellent. Meeting ajourneyed.'

'Adjourned,' corrected Ace.

'What she said.'

All eight newsie leaders rose from their chairs at the same time, and most of the tension that was stretched over the table dissolved into the air.

Most.

'Don't be late tomorrow,' said Spot, tilting his cane at Ace. 'Five p.m. sharp. The docks, past the Brooklyn Bridge. Ya been?'

'Know of.'

'When I'm through wit' you, half the bones in yer body'll be dust.'

Ace looked down on him and adopted a deadpan expression.

'Now even you know that's scientifically impossible.'

'Still scared ya though,' he smirked, casting his eyes downwards. Ace cursed her shaking hands and folded them under her armpits. Spot's sly grin only grew in width.

'Gentlemen, it's been a pleasure. Hope to see all a' youse there tomorrow to witness the event. Jack.'

'Spot.' They shook hands, minus the spit. The Brooklyn leader sauntered out of the theater, followed by the other leaders, who all waved to Jack. To Ace, they either briefly tipped their caps or gave an awkward, fleeting nod. She was unfazed.

The time was ten minutes to five. Jack and Ace were the only ones left in the cavernous auditorium. Varnish and tobacco mingled in the air. Ace tugged her collar loose and let her hair tumble out from under her cap. On this October evening the streets would doubtless be cast into shadow: she could let passersby think, from a distance, that she was a newsboy who just happened to have long hair.

'You alright?' asked Jack, watching her turn the cap over in her hands. Ace looked his way as he walked past her in the aisle. Her face remained a mask.

'Perfectly,' she replied, with a contradictory shake of the head.

'I s'pose we'll be walkin' some a' the same route back.'

'S'pose so.'

They left Irving Hall together and walked in silence down the streets, cooled by the imminent arrival of night.

After a few minutes, Ace spoke up:

'Conlon…he called you Cowboy.'

'Yeah, so?'

'So does he call ya that 'cause of your taste in hats, or what?'

**A/N: **To be continued…Please type a little review for me below with your thoughts on the story/ Newsies / life - I like knowing who my readers are :)


	5. That We Had To Choose

**Chapter Five**

**That We Had To Choose**

**Disclaimer: What I already said in the thing before that one time.**

'Ha,' Jack scoffed. 'Not a bad guess. But they call me Cowboy 'cause, in this city, I'm as close to a genuine one as you'll ever find.'

'That so?'

'I almost moved out to Santa Fe.'

'Almost?' said Ace. She'd brought a coat. Jack envied the pockets her hands could snugly rest in.

'Just as the strike was over, I had the chance to get outta New York fer good, take a ride to the train yards from Mr. Teddy Roosevelt himself.'

'Yeah, I remember hearin' that,' Ace nodded. Her white breath disappeared into the dark.

'Turns out he knows how to give a good pep talk, 'cause we turned that carriage right round and went back to the gates a' The World.'

'Too much in New York you'd miss?'

'Yeah,' sighed Jack. His first kiss with Sarah came back all too vividly. It was so hot that day, and now leaves were dying. How did the strike feel both like an age ago _and_ as if it had just happened last week?

'It wasn't a bad deal I offered, y'know,' he said before he could stop himself. 'Spreadin' across the city - they might not look it, but all a' the newsie leaders are real welcomin'. The strike only brought us closer together.'

They'd reached the beginning of Duane Street, Horace Greely's statue catching early moonlight in the distance. Ace stared at Jack until he noticed.

'You really don't understand, do ya?'

'Understand what?'

'For every dozen newsboys there must be about one newsgirl. My friends and I worked hard and risked a lot, and I mean a _hell_ of a lot, to find each other. We promised to always be there for each other, so we could feel safe. I'll never let us scatter, not for you, not for Conlon, for anyone.'

'You can't protect 'em forever, y'know.'

'Says who?'

'Says the future,' replied Jack. He and Ace exchanged hard glances. 'We ain't gonna be newsies forever, Ace. You're, what, seventeen?'

'That, yeah,' she muttered.

'So am I. It's a sour truth ta' swallow, but ya can't try protectin' the way things are if it's all gonna change in a year, two years maybe.'

'Get off your high horse, Cowboy,' snapped Ace. She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and, like a yo-yo string, Jack tugged himself back.

'Hey now, listen -'

'No, _you're_ gonna listen,' she interrupted. Jack might as well have been back in a room with Pulitzer. 'It's easy for you to yak on about embracin' the future, not bein' afraid to scatter, but since it has clearly never crossed your mind, I'll be the first to tell you that our options ain't like yours.'

'What's that s'posed to mean?'

'If the girls and I weren't newsies, whaddya think we'd be able ta do otherwise? What's out there in the future for us? Do ya know?'

Jack felt his face get tighter in the dropping temperature. He shook his head.

'Sin, Kelly. Sin for profit, that's what's out there, that enterprise no one discusses in public but _everyone_ knows happens every day in alleyways. In brothels. It makes me _sick_.'

'It don't have to be like that,' said Jack.

'No, it damn well don't,' said Ace. 'But it is.'

They stood opposite one another in the darkened streets. Gaslights flickered inside the glass of street lamps.

'So excuse me,' Ace continued, calmer. 'If wantin' to protect my friends from that life path somehow offends your leadership.'

She resumed walking, but at a pace indicating an explicit desire to go alone. Jack sighed, before calling out:

'See ya tomorrow.'

Unexpectedly, Ace paused in her tracks across the square. She turned her head, expression and tone ambiguous.

'Yeah. Guess you will.'

Jack watched her retreating figure until she blended into the evening shadows. He lit another cigarette, headed over to the lodging house, and tried not to reflect too much on whatever the hell had just happened.

Unfortunately for him, someone else was voracious for details:

'Hey, Cowboy!'

Jack tipped the brim of his hat to see a certain Italian gambler emerge from the opposite direction.

'Heya Race. How was Sheepshead?'

'Middling,' replied Racetrack. 'I lost on the horse but won half my money's worth back at a poker game afterwards. Can't complain, really.'

The two of them crossed the threshold of the lodging house. Jack soaked the insulating warmth up into his bones, which felt older than they did at the beginning of the day.

'But let's not get sidetracked here,' said Race, eyes gleaming. As soon as they stepped into the reception/living area, Jack knew he'd have to play the role of Star Reporter: every newsie's attention switched from their pipes, marbles and cards, to him. Jack glance at Racetrack. He looked to be on the verge of exploding with curiosity.

'You wanna tell us about the meeting?'

'Yeah Jack.'

'Tell us Jack!'

'What's she like?'

'Are we absolutely certain it's a 'she'?'

'Boys, boys, control yerselves for just one more minute,' yelled Jack over the bombardment of questions. 'I gotta sit down and breathe.'

Just as he sank into a free armchair, another pair of footsteps creaked through the doorway.

'Heya Davey!' said Crutchy in his usual beaming way. David waved back and grinned, shrugging off a coat while carrying three books in one hand. 'How's the schoolyard treatin' ya?'

'Coldly,' replied David. He sat on the arm of a couch and rubbed his hands together. 'But it's going well, really well.'

'Good ta hear it,' said Crutchy. 'You're just in time - Jack's about to tell us what happened at the negotiations.'

All ears were listening. Jack took a long drag on his cigarette before launching into it. He replayed the event in his head like a moving picture, and it helped him set the scene for the boys, who hung on his every word (as usual).

'…So now,' Jack concluded, acknowledging for the first time that it was actually going to happen. 'Spot won't let Ace have peace a' mind or his trust until they fight.'

More than a few jaws fell open. David looked aghast.

'Are you serious? Jack, she's just a girl…she can't fight Spot, she'll get hurt!'

'Oh she will most certainly get hurt,' said Jack, without enthusiasm. 'But she ain't just a girl.'

'Whaddya mean by that?' asked Specs from the banister.

'I don't know,' admitted Jack. 'She…she's just not like any goil I ever seen before. Can't read her.'

'She's a dame, not a book,' quipped Race. Jack rolled his eyes - walked right into that one.

'So you're going to the fight, Jack?' said Mush, reclining on the couch.

'Well someone's gotta be there to make sure the two don't moider each other and end up on the front page the next day.'

'Shoah,' said Race, puffing on a cigar. '_That's_ the reason.'

Jack warily turned to his wisecracking friend.

'What are you sayin', Race?'

'Oh I ain't sayin' nuttin',' he replied nonchalantly. 'Only obsoivin'. You and Ace were locked in some deep conversation just now, alone, huddled in the cold…'

'You were eavesdroppin'?' said Jack, although he really shouldn't have been so surprised.

'Granted, I didn't actually hear what was bein' said, but from a distance it looked like the two of you had a connection, a' sorts. But that's just my two cents, obviously.'

'Yeah, well next time you can keep yer change,' said Jack, stubbing his cigarette in an ashtray. 'Only connection me and Ace got is a professional one, and what we talked about, well, it weren't romantic, that's for sure.'

Whether this was intentional or not, he and David shared a private glance across the room. 'Sarah' was the unspoken word between them. It may have been three months, but even a meaningless jibe from Racetrack about a new love interest left behind a bit of awkwardness here, a bit of sadness there, like impressions on a bed sheet.

'Jack?'

The leader fell out of that brief moment to look at Blink.

'What _did_ you talk about?'

'Just, uh,' began Jack, all too conscious of David's presence in the room, not to mention that of the younger newsies. 'Why she's so careful not to let her crew break up. Wants to avoid the other path a' life for goils in their position: no parents, no money, no real lodgings.'

'What's the other path?' asked David.

'Prostitution.' There, it was said. Now they could move on.

'Oh.' David's response sounded like he'd swallowed an egg whole.

A spell of silence settled over the heads of the Manhattan newsies. None of them knew quite where to look. Jack tapped the armrest of his chair absent-mindedly, feeling tainted by this new knowledge. Mush was the first to murmur something.

'Suddenly them dressin' like us don't seem like such a crazy idea after all.'

A few others nodded at this sentiment. To Jack's relief, Boots changed the subject.

'Hey, Jack, you need someone to go wit' ya to the fight?'

'Sure,' he replied. 'If Spot Conlon don't make ya so noivous as he used to.'

'Noivous, after the strike? Nah,' said Boots. 'I'se up for it.'

'Then I'll meet ya after sellin'. Any other takers?'

'I would,' said David with a half-sigh. 'But I'm getting too much homework right now to warrant a trip to Brooklyn.'

'Don't sweat it, Dave,' said Jack. 'Some other time, and then you can yell off a' the Bridge wit' us.'

David rolled his eyes and smiled.

'Hey Jack, can I come?' piped up Crutchy from his chair. 'My leg's feelin' good, even at this time a' year. I could handle a walk to Brooklyn.'

'You sure, Crutchy?' The younger boy nodded keenly.

'Sure as a duck on water. I mean, I missed so much a' the action in the Refuge, it'd be great to see somethin' like this first-hand.'

Jack smiled.

'Well, how could I say no to that?'

'Gee, thanks Jack. Aw, this is gonna be sensational, I can feel it.'

**A/N: Hope you enjoyed today's installment! It would make my day if you posted a review, and, let's be honest, it's a great incentive to write more chapters :) **


	6. If The Life Don't Seem To Suit Ya

**Chapter Six**

**If The Life Don't Seem To Suit Ya**

**Disclaimer: Ok but no seriously…there be no newsies under **_**this**_** copyright. Just my OCs.**

**A/N: Gold star to LovesBrooklyn for their ace (lol, puns) review! **

Streets woke up to a cold puddle of drool on her hard pillow.

'Ew,' she whispered to herself, voice yet to wake up. The air was light and fresh, carrying the usual river breeze through the gaps in the walls of the fishing shack (of which there were a great deal).

The absence of movement or chatter told Streets she was the first one awake, but when she sat up to peel off three itchy blankets, she realized that wasn't the case.

'Jaysus, Mary an' Joseph, how long have ya been up?'

Ace didn't flinch at the sound of her voice, but stayed in her place on the high window ledge, one knee up, one leg hanging down. She gazed out at the Hudson River, still and gray.

''Bout an hour,' she replied softly. 'My brain don't wanna rest - wants to torture me instead.'

Streets shuffled to the end of her bunk and, with stiff limbs, clambered up to join her friend. She shivered in her nightgown. Ace was already dressed.

'Who're ya taking?'

'Skates and Rich,' said Ace, before adding, 'if that's ducky wit' you.'

'Yeah, yeah,' said Streets. 'Believe me, I've had my share a' quality time wit' the Manhattan newsies.' She shook her head at the memory of her interrogation.

'Did someone call me?'

Ace and Streets peered down at the other bunks. One squeaked and creaked as Skates hauled herself up, curly blonde hair sticking out in all directions.

'Mornin' Skates,' said Ace, drumming her fingertips on the windowpanes. 'Up for cleanin' my blood off the Brooklyn docks today?'

Skates cast her a sympathetic look as she gathered her blankets around her shoulders.

'Aw, Ace. Sure I'll be there. But remember, Conlon ain't gonna kill ya.'

'Clearly you haven't heard what he did to the last Brooklyn leader,' countered Ace. Skates blanched.

One by one the rest of the girls stirred and blinked their bleary eyes open.

'It's too early for…' mumbled Vi, a gangly girl of Ace's height, as she sandwiched her pillow over her ears.

'Too early for what?' yawned Madison.

'For everything,' came the muffled reply. Streets tilted her head from Ace to their beds with a mischievous expression. Grateful for the distraction, Ace nodded. They hopped down from the window ledge, grabbed the pillows from their bunks, and started vigorously thwacking Vi with them through her blankets. She squirmed and blindly kicked at the air.

'Damn you!' She sat up and pushed the two newsies off her mattress. 'I'm up, I'm up already.'

Ace put a finger to her lips and hushed the room: Frames, a petite, bony girl with green eyes behind spectacles, knelt on the freezing floorboards and recited the Lord's prayer under her breath. The girls patiently waited for her to finish, and promptly went back to greeting the morning.

'I've got a good feelin' about the fight, Ace,' said Darlin' from across the room, patting down her icy blonde hair. 'Had a dream about it last night: you were wrappin' Spot Conlon in a thick red Chinese rug on the docks, and there were some ducks as well, although I ain't sure why.'

'Right,' said Ace, slowly nodding. 'Even though you don't know what he looks like?'

'Well, okay, I only saw a newsie cap and a pair a' shoes stickin' out both ends,' conceded Darlin'. 'But I assume it was him, 'cause that's who you're fightin' and all.'

'Yeah, that I am,' groaned Ace, running a hand through her hair. 'Aw, who am I kiddin'? I'm in for the soakin' a' my life this afternoon.'

'Cheer up, Ace,' said Rich, patting her friend's arm. 'If things get outta hand, then Skates an' I, we'll step in and give Brooklyn the soakin' a' _his _lifetime.'

That helped. Ace smiled.

'C'mon,' said Madison to the shack. 'Let's suit up and get some coffee from Stone's Throw.'

'Couldn't think of anythin' I'd like to do more,' said Ace. She could use the caffeine, and the company. She trusted her friends enough to confide in them, be herself around them, but she had to be a leader too. And that meant knowing when to put her nerves away in a box.

'Whatcha think a' these?'

'The green looks promisin',' replied Spot, holding a marble up to the darkening sky. He put it in his slingshot, aimed at an empty beer bottle, and shattered it from ten feet away.

'Thanks Boots,' he said, shaking the newsie's hand.

'Anytime.'

Spot leapt up to the top of some stacked crates and started talking to one of his newsies. It was three minutes to five. A small crowd milled on the docks, composed principally of Spot's Brooklyn crew, followed by a few guys from the Bronx, Harlem and, finally, Jack and his buddies.

'Wonder where she's gonna appear from this time,' said Jack, scanning the crates that broke up the skyline.

'You mentioned she's real tall, right?' said Crutchy.

'Yeah.'

'Then…is that her?' Jack turned around and squinted at where Crutchy was pointing. Murmurs and whispers spread like flames between the guys; the taller, more intimidating newsies under Spot's command lined themselves along the edges of the dock and stared down the three Riverside girls who were arriving just in time.

'That's her alright,' replied Jack. He recognized the short muscular brunette on her left, but not the one on her right, small and slim with a large tan cap on her head.

'Well now I seen everything,' remarked Boots. If only that were true, thought Jack. He'd had a bad feeling about this fight as soon as Spot waged it, but now he was resisting the temptation to call the whole thing off.

Ace kept her eyes on Jack the whole way down the dock, like a buoy to mark her path in the sea. She found herself blinking much more than any average person should, just to get rid of the excess energy coursing maniacally through her bloodstream.

'Here to witness the carnage, Kelly?'

'Moral support actually.'

'For who, me or Spot?'

'Both.'

'I see. These friends a' yours?'

'Two a' my best newsies, right here,' said Jack. 'Boots, Crutchy, meet Ace Heximer.'

'Good to meet ya,' said Boots, a tad too quickly.

'It's a real pleasure,' smiled Crutchy, offering his hand. Ace shook it, surprised. 'Jack's told us lots about you.'

'Should I be worried?' Jack forced a laugh.

'Ha, no, only good words from me.'

'Right. Anyway…this is Rich and Skates,' she said, pointing a thumb past each shoulder. 'Is it alright if they stick wit' you until this is, uh, over?'

'Sure,' said Jack. The two girls muttered 'thanks', but seemed to feel too awkward to meet the leader's eyes.

Jack frowned as, up close, he took in the faint circles under Ace's eyes, and her jittery hands.

'You okay, Ace?' he asked. She nodded, but her eyes kept restlessly switching direction.

She mentally cursed the generous manager of the Stone's Throw Diner, their local haunt by the Hudson, who had granted them refills of their coffee at no extra charge. Consequently, Ace wondered whether it was physically possible for a human pulse to feel like a hummingbird's, because that's certainly what hers felt like.

The newsie crowd quieted down in near-perfect synchronicity with the thud of feet landing on the dock, having jumped down from the crates.

'Well if it ain't the Ace of all trades.'

In that two-second window, with her back to Spot, Jack saw it, in her face: a widening of the eyes, a tightening of the jaw. Fear. Fear that she immediately erased by hardening everything about her expression. Slowly, almost leisurely, Ace turned to meet her opponent.

'Does that make you the jack of none?'

A ripple of 'oohs' went through the crowd. Spot only nodded his head at Jack.

'Nah, he is.' This was met with widespread chuckling. 'Nothin' personal, Jacky-boy.'

'Not at all,' said Jack. How could he be so nervous when he wasn't even the one fighting?

'Let's lay down the basic rules,' Spot declared loudly. 'You and me, no interference, no weapons. First one ta hit the dock loses. Questions?'

'Yeah,' said Ace, smirking in spite of herself. 'Did your growth spurt get lost in the mail or somethin'? 'Cause you're long overdue.'

'_Ow_!' yelled Boots, half full of glee, half shocked that she'd said that to Brooklyn's face. Crutchy snickered uncontrollably behind his fist. Jack just watched Spot's face in dread. She'd really done it now.

Only Spot himself didn't outwardly react to her scathing jibe. He just let his eyes travel to her hands again.

'Your hands are shakin' up a storm, goil,' he sneered. 'Joke about me all ya want, bottom line is, you'se terrified.'

'I had six cups a' coffee today, sue me,' retorted Ace. 'Let's just get this over with already.'

'Shoah,' said Spot, putting his hands up. His second-in-command, Rails, took his cane off his hands, as well as his newsie cap. Ace removed her own, plus her coat and jacket. Skates folded them over her arms, looking nervous for all three of the Riverside girls.

To keep her hands steady, Ace rolled up her sleeves and flexed her fingers. Deep, even breathing, that was all that mattered right now, otherwise she could very well pass out.

'Ready?'

'Ready,' said Spot. And so it began. The newsies in the crowd sat on the edge of crates, leaned from wooden beams, captivated by a first in history: Spot Conlon, versus a girl.

'You got this, Ace.'

'Just stay cool.'

Skates and Rich watched their leader intently, as she distanced herself several feet from Spot. They clenched their fists, put them up in defensive positions. Ace lowered herself almost to Spot's height, distributing her weight evenly between her knees.

For a few long seconds, they did nothing but circle each other and size each other up. Ace kept blinking.

'Damn caffeine,' she muttered. The nerves were killing her - she couldn't take it any more.

The crowd's volume flared up when she threw the first punch at his gut. This ultimately backfired, however, when pain spiked her knuckles and went all the way up her hand. She leapt back and tried to shake it out. She stared in disbelief at Spot, who just raised an eyebrow and smirked.

Ace shifted from foot to foot, on her toes. Spot held her gaze, evidently trying to psyche her out. She had to hold her ground.

When she tried again, this time going for his shoulder, he swung away and, before she could even consider reacting, elbowed her in the ribs.

'_Ah_,' she winced, clutching her side. That was going to leave a bruise.

'Just gettin' started, doll,' he shouted.

Jack and Crutchy exchanged glances of horror - this was actually happening, this girl was on the path to getting absolutely pummeled.

Ace exhaled through the pain and put her fists back up. She would come out of this fight with her head held high. She had to.

Switching to a new tactic, she closed the gap between them and feigned a punch to Spot's face. The second his arm moved to block it, she slammed her fist into his shoulder, her original target.

Skates and Rich clapped and barked 'yes!' when Spot staggered backwards, although this lasted for all of two seconds. With a growl, he immediately launched a right hook at her cheekbone. Ace stumbled as half the world flashed black. Another bruise - fantastic.

Before she could even recover from that, Spot hit her again, this time in the nose. Ace's head swung backwards, and Skates gave a small yelp when flecks of blood flew up into the air.

'Oh god -' she gasped as her leader began falling backwards.

Jack's heart was in his throat - Ace's foot crossed over her supporting leg, giving her _just_ enough balance to keep from hitting the dock. In a moment so tense the air felt electric, she hovered on one foot with her hand mere inches from touching the boards.

'C'mon Ace,' whispered Rich, loud enough for Jack to hear. 'Don't lose it now, get back up there…YEAH, THAT'S OUR LEADER!'

Cheers and hisses alike came from the crowd as Ace wrenched herself back to a full standing position, teeth gritted in pain. She felt blood gushing from her nose, tasted it on her lips.

Locking eyes with Spot again, Ace shakily wiped some of the blood off with the bare skin of her forearm and spat what was in her mouth onto the docks. If acting like a guy was what she'd been aiming for, Jack thought, then she'd definitely succeeded.

Spot kept his look measured, now less tinged with arrogance. He hadn't expected her to last quite this long, especially after that last punch.

Suddenly, it was out of her control: Ace felt all the nerves, all the caffeine and tension, surge away from her heart and into her bones. She felt calm, and she felt calm because she was fed up. It was time to finish this fight.

'Hey,' she yelled. The newsies stared and listened. 'Jack.'

That was the last name anyone had been expecting to hear right now. Skates and Rich looked at him. Crutchy and Boots looked at each other. He looked at Ace.

'Yeah?' he replied uncertainly. Ace and Spot circled each other again, but this time their fists were hanging straight down by their sides.

'I never told ya where I was durin' the strike. Where I lived for three months. Did I?'

'…No,' he called back, not having the foggiest idea where this was going. 'Where?'

Ace didn't respond right away. She broke the circle and approached Conlon, slowly, her eyes burning into his. She put up her fists and breathed hard, as did he.

Everyone was expecting another punch; no one other than Skates had expected Ace to spring up, twist in the air and kick a long, powerful leg squarely into Spot's chest.

And absolutely no one on that dock expected him to get thrown backwards, off his feet, to land on his back against the wooden boards with a clattering and definitive thump.

Silence. Ace was the only one who moved - she took two steps forward, stood over Spot and, nose still bleeding, bowed from the waist with one fist against an open palm. She looked Jack in the eye.

'Chinatown.'

Skates chucked Ace's cap, coat and jacket to Rich and leapt on her friend with a bear hug.

'You did it! You did it, that was amazing!'

The crowd came alive again. Two of Spot's newsies rushed to help their leader up off the floor. He sat up slowly, stunned, and hacked out a cough.

'What…the hell…was that,' he spluttered, hoarse. 'This was s'posed to be a fist fight, damn it.'

'Ah,' said Ace, trying to speak while stemming her nosebleed at the same time. 'You didn't say _nothin'_ in the rules about usin' kicks. Just no weapons. And unless I'm mistaken,' she said, pretending to examine the docks, 'there ain't no weapons round here.'

He still looked understandably pissed off. She changed tack.

'Look, you keep our secret from the bulls, and I'll conveniently forget what just happened here.' She held out her unstained hand as steadily as possible. 'Whaddya say, call it a tie and move on?'

Spot stared at her, his expression unreadable. He glanced at the crowd, who held their breath. Jack tugged hard on his bandanna and swallowed.

Then, out of nowhere, Spot grinned. He took Ace's hand but, instead of shaking it, he used it to pull her closer.

'Nah, you know what? I know when I'se been beat, at least this time round. We got's ourselves a winner, and you're it.'

He held her arm up to the sky. Now that it had Brooklyn's seal of approval, his newsies felt it was safe to cheer Spot's opponent. Jack wanted to collapse from a mixture of exhaustion and relief - he steadied himself on the corner of a crate.

'Ya got guts, Ace,' said Spot over the noise. He let her arm down and rubbed the point on his breastbone where her foot had made contact.

'Sure hope so,' she said in between pinches of her nose. 'Else I'd have serious trouble eatin' anything.'

Spot had to laugh. Jack took this as a good sign to walk over, Boots and Crutchy right on his heels.

'You alright hun?' said Rich, pulling a face at the blood quickly congealing on Ace's skin and sleeves.

'Yeah, just mind ya don't slip,' she replied nasally.

'Lean forward,' said Skates. 'It'll help stop the flow.'

'Thanks,' said Ace, doing just that.

'Can I just say,' Crutchy spoke up. Ace met his giddy brown eyes. 'That was the most spectacular display I have seen in a very long time.'

'That's kind a' you to say…what was it, Crutchy?'

'Yes m'am.'

'Don't call me m'am - I ain't Queen Victoria.'

'Oh, sure…Ace,' said Crutchy, trying the name like a new flavor of something.

'It really was,' said Jack. 'I never thought a goil could fight like that.'

Three pairs of unimpressed eyes turned to him.

'No offense,' he amended. Just then, a light 'thwack' sounded next to him, and the boards of the dock jumped.

'Jeez, is he alright?' said Skates.

'Oh, don't worry about him,' said Crutchy reassuringly, looking at a supine Boots. 'He just can't stand blood is all.'

'R-i-g-h-t,' the three girls said at once.

**A/N: Wow, that was probably the longest chapter so far…as a reward for my hard work, please click the review button. I'll love you forever (in a non-creepy way) :P**


	7. Now That The Choices Are Clear

**Chapter Seven**

**Now That The Choices Are Clear**

**Disclaimer: ****私は自分自身の****Newsies****しない。私は私の****OCs****を所有している。**

**A/N: Thanks to arosequartz for your review! Keep it up, people - I like knowing who you are :)**

'I gotta fix my shoes one a' these days,' said Frames. Her right sole flapped with each step along the sidewalk.

'Here, I got some string,' said Madison, pulling some out of her sleeve.

'Ace, is it much further?'

'Almost there, Vi,' she replied. Ace was not pleased that she now sounded like the victim of a permanent cold, or that last night she kept waking up in pain because her nose was pressing into the pillow.

Still, a victory was a victory. Now was the time for something different: it was the first morning the girls would collect copies of The World with the Manhattan newsies.

Frames lagged behind the other seven as she hopped, tying the string around her shoe. Ace's nose stung when a chill tunneled down the grid streets.

'You're bleedin' again,' said Skates. Ace sighed, patting her pockets in search of a handkerchief. Madison didn't wait to be asked before offering one from her sleeve, in a bright purple color.

'What _don't_ you got up there?' asked Streets.

'Money,' replied Madison. 'Hope the headlines'll keep gettin' better this week.'

'Better than a war between Brits and South Africans?' said Rich. 'Unlikely.'

Bright, cold sun made the statue of Horace Greely gleam, or at least the parts not draped in small newsie children.

'Ace,' Skates said into her ear. The morning crowd of thirty-strong newsies fell into sight. 'Do they _all_ know about us?'

'I don't know. Best play it safe,' she said, turning around to talk to everyone. 'Remember guys, keep your caps low and your voices deep.'

The girls nodded, adopting the boyish mannerisms they'd fine-tuned over the last six months: shrugging, slouching, hands in pockets, tugging collars and cuffs, sniffing loudly, and the like.

Jack was the first to catch Ace's eye, but Crutchy was the first to draw everyone's attention to them:

'Hey look, fellas! It's the goi -'

'_Guys_!' Jack drowned out, putting a shrewd look out to his main circle of newsies. Most of them winked and nodded. Crutchy corrected himself.

'Hm, oh yes, the guys, the - the Riverside Guys, that's who dey are.'

'The new ones?' asked Snaps, a newsie who had a bunk in the lodging house but didn't hang out with the boys as much.

'Yeah,' said Blink, watching the eight of them join the crowd. They stuck together like an infantry unit and regarded the others with mild hostility.

Behind Streets, the only one he recognized, stood a tall girl with pale pink lips and hair so blonde it could be white. She had a mole near the corner of her mouth that reminded Blink of the glamorous French girls some of the boys had posters of on the walls of the lodging house.

Her eyes, dark as bluebells, wandered absently over people and objects on the other side of the street. It was mere coincidence that she then happened to look at him, but when she did, her eyes brought themselves back into the present. Over a stretch of paving stones and newsie heads, they looked. No greetings or gestures- just a mutual appreciation of the other's existence in the world.

'Wanna come over and meet the gang, Ace?' called Jack. Since their little spat the other evening, he'd been keen to start afresh. She looked at her friends, arms folded, in half a mind to turn down the offer. Thankfully, though, she gave a brisk nod and crossed over to their side, patting Skates' arm.

'Mornin',' she said, business-like. She was all too conscious of her injured nose and the shiner on her cheek. 'I'm afraid I don't look this attractive all the time.'

The boys chuckled, reassured that this enigmatic figure did in fact have a sense of humor.

'How're the battle wounds?' asked Crutchy. Boots pulled a face at the gruesome image of that punch.

'Hardly a problem at all,' she lied. Crutchy smiled. 'What time're the gates due to open?'

'Any time now,' said Mush.

'You remember Mush, right?' said Jack.

'Yeah. Hi.'

'Crutchy, Boots an' Race,' said Jack, nodding to the newsies she'd met before. Then he launched into an exhaustive, quickfire list:

'Over here is Kid Blink, Skittery, Snipeshooter, Pie Eater, Snoddy, Snitch, Bumlets, Itey, Jake, Swifty, Specs, Dutchy, and Tumbler.'

Ace surveyed said newsies from left to right and blinked twice.

'I sincerely hope yer not gonna test us on those anytime soon,' said Streets from across the way.

'Good ta see ya again, Streets,' said Jack. She gave a snide tilt of the head and waved. Ace pointed to each of her own newsies.

'This here's Skates, Rich, Madison, Vi, Frames, Darlin' and Streets.'

A lot of silent nods, even a few tipped hats, were exchanged between the two groups.

'Darlin',' muttered Blink to himself with a grin. 'That's great.'

At long last the iron gates to The World swung open. The sea of newsies poured into a noisy queue for the collection desk. Ace tried to keep her friends together, but inevitably some of them got separated and ended up sandwiched between boys they'd never spoken to in their lives. It was all rather overwhelming, like the very first day they'd tried their hand at selling papes, all over again.

Jack had shot right to the front of the line, but Ace managed to get in just behind. She watched the shutters go up, vaguely curious to see how this cocky Manhattan leader made his transactions.

'A fine day, ain't it Weas?'

'How would I know, I'm stuck in here all day,' replied the round, disheveled clerk. 'Hundred papes fer Sullivan.'

'Sullivan?' Ace said. Jack rolled his eyes.

'Was that necessary?'

'No, I just very much enjoy yer reaction,' smirked Wiesel, passing the papes over. Jack made the equivalent of a rude hand gesture with his eyes.

'Did I miss somethin'?' Ace asked Racetrack, to her left.

'That's a story fer another time,' he replied coolly, patting her back. Without breaking her calm appearance, Ace gripped his wrist and shoved it a healthy distance away from her, before giving him deadpan eyes.

'Touch me without askin' again and your nose'll look a whole lot worse than mine.'

She let go of him and went to buy her papes. Racetrack held his arms up in a surrender position and gave a long, low whistle. The other newsies snickered.

'Mornin',' she said to the clerk. Two young men in bowler hats stood on either side of him, scrutinizing Ace from behind the bars.

'Ain't seen you 'round here before,' said the one with a moustache.

'No, ya probably ain't.'

'Got a name, boy?' asked the clerk with a huff. 'Fer the records?'

'Ace,' she said, fishing sixty cents from her pocket. 'Can I get a look at the headlines?'

'Sure,' he said, passing a copy of that day's edition. Ace's eyes scanned the front page efficiently, but thoughtfully.

'Ain't got all day, kid.'

'Hold on one sec.' She held up an index finger and kept her eyes on the paper. 'Just perusing the merchandise.'

The newsies in earshot laughed. Ace glanced up, oblivious, before turning to Jack, who'd taken a seat on one of the steps below. He looked pleasantly surprised.

'What?'

'Nuttin',' he said with an innocent shake of the head. Ace ignored the joke she didn't get and returned her attention to the desk.

'Yeah, I can work with this. I'll take eighty.'

The clerk looked mildly impressed.

'Eighty papes for the new guy.'

Ace sighed, hoping that name wouldn't stick. She hauled the bundle over her shoulder and moved on.

Further down the line, Streets had found herself caught between Racetrack and Skittery, both of whom were smoking.

'Could ya maybe, uh, not do that at the same time?'

As Race stepped up to the counter, he turned around, mid-drag, and exhaled his cigar smoke directly into Streets' face. She screwed her eyes shut and spluttered.

'Jaysus, Mary an' Joseph, you're still sore about that short joke, ain't ya?'

'I don't know what on earth you mean,' he said. 'Fifty papes, Weas.'

'Not goin' down the tracks today, Race?' said Wiesel. This was a rare event.

'Nah, I just replenished my cigar stock - can't afford ta place bets for a couple a' days.'

'Well, here ya go.'

'Thanks,' said Race, taking his papes. He took a seat beside Jack.

'Aw man, what is this?' he moaned, rapping a hand against the front page. 'Some rich guy buys a railroad? That ain't news, that's accountancy.'

'We'll make the best of it,' said Jack, flipping through the other pages.

'Oh, by the way,' said Race, looking up at Streets as she came down the steps, fifty papes in her arms. 'Has anyone ever told you that you got the strangest accent ever heard on a person?'

She walked round to meet him on the ground.

'Why no,' she said. 'That is completely brand new information. I feel so enlightened.'

Waiting by the tall gate hinges, Ace laughed.

'Very funny,' said Race, dividing his attention between the headlines and Streets. 'But seriously, I just can't place it. Where are ya from?'

'From right here,' replied Streets, not in the mood for this question so early in the morning.

'C'mon, ya know what I mean: what's yer heritage?'

Streets left an uncomfortable pause in the air, but eventually answered:

'Italian.'

'Just Italian?' said Race skeptically.

'Well what are you?' she countered. He tugged suavely on the panels of his waistcoat.

'_I_ am Anthony 'Racetrack' Higgins, bold Italian-Irishman a' the Manhattan newsies.'

Skittery chuckled, joining them.

'What a sweepin' title ta give yerself.'

'An' don't you forget it.' Race said, before catching Streets' startled expression. 'What?'

'You got Irish blood in ya?'

'_Y-e-s_…' he drawled condescendingly.

'…So do I.'

The two of them frowned at each other, not knowing what to make of this revelation.

'Well that's a hell of a coincidence,' concluded Race.

'It's not somethin' I like to shout about,' said Streets, shuffling from foot to foot. 'I mean, how unfortunate a combination is mine: not only Irish, but also a wo- '

'Workin' class guy!' chimed in Madison, who appeared out of nowhere to get Streets in a headlock, muffling her last word. 'Yeah, real unfortunate, that.'

Racetrack shook his head and sniggered along with Jack and Skittery. When Madison released Streets, she administered a stern glance.

'Watch what ya say round here,' she muttered. 'C'mon, Ace is waitin'.'

As the two of them headed off to their leader, Madison's owlish eyes brushed over the lengthy queue and landed on a familiar sight: the baby-faced newsboy they called 'Mush'. He was laughing uproariously at something, and his whole being lit up as he did so.

It became obvious she'd looked too long when Madison walked right into a horse-drawn newspaper cart. She was lucky not to drop her sixty papes, but the spectacle was enough to make Mush notice. Madison blushed profusely, something she hated doing.

'C'mon, ya klutz,' said Ace, swooping to the rescue. 'Those banners won't carry themselves.'

She, Streets and Madison walked confidently out into the square, with Frames, Vi, Rich and Skates hurrying behind them.

'Shoot,' said Darlin', the last of the Riverside newsies in line. She was still waiting for her fifty papes. Hastily, she swung the pile under her arm, muttered 'thanks' to Wiesel, and moved to go down the steps. Drawback: they were lined with newsies. Additional drawback: the one directly blocking her path was the blond kid with an eye patch.

'Blink,' said Swifty, indicating that he was in the way. He turned around. Within three inches of each other, the two newsies froze. Darlin' inexplicably found herself struck down with a case of lockjaw.

'Oh, sorry,' he said. 'D'you wanna get past?'

Darlin' opened her mouth and promptly shut it again. In this event of verbal failure, her brain fell back on instinct: she stepped to the left, leapt off the platform in a stag jump, just missing Jack and Race's heads, and landed on the ground, scurrying after her friends without looking back.

Race and Jack swapped perplexed stares, before craning their necks back to Blink, who looked on. Swifty cleared his throat.

'Hey Blink.'

'Wha?' he said.

'No droolin' on the merchandise.'

**A/N: Really hope you enjoyed that. If so, or if not, then share your thoughts right below. Thank you muchly ^_^**


	8. How We Made The Tables Turn

**Chapter Eight**

**How We Made The Tables Turn**

**Disclaimer: [Yeah, that's right, these babies are going multilingual] Non possiedo Newsies. Possiedo soltanto il mio OC.**

**A/N: A thank-you to the thank-you arosequartz gave me for giving them a shoutout because they reviewed…that makes sense, right?**

'Extra! Extra! Railroad purchased for _extortionate_ sums a' money, over two hundred thousand dollars, yes you heard correctly ladies and gentlemen, OVER TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS! Read all about it! Thank ya very much, have a nice day now.'

Snoddy sold five more papes in quick succession. It turned out that the public were fans of gasping over how much other people spent on things. Down to his last eight papes, he strolled in the direction of Blink and Mush, who were just passing a stationer's.

'Hey Snods,' said Mush. 'Got plans fer this evenin'?'

'Nuttin' in particular. Why?'

'Just wonderin' if we should take our chances and play poker wit' Race tonight,' replied Blink. All three newsies sucked air through their teeth.

'I don't know,' said Snoddy. 'Generally prefer coins ta be in my pockets, not outta them.'

They stepped onto a short bridge overlooking the Hudson. It was close to three o'clock in the afternoon, and there were considerably fewer merchants lining the way than there had been in the morning frenzy. The newsies could relax and take things much slower.

'Hey, dat who I think it is?' said Mush, pointing to the middle of the left side of the bridge, blue paint chipping from the rails. Blink and Snoddy looked.

'Oh,' breathed Blink, not expecting to see Darlin' in the same part of the neighborhood. She was leaning against the rails, laughing with Frames, the other blonde. Apparently they'd already finished selling all their papes, because their hands were empty, rubbing together in the frequent nippy breezes. Wisps of pale golden hair came loose under Darlin's cap, which she held in place with one hand. Neither of them noticed the boys were there in the distance.

'Shall we go say hello?' suggested Snoddy. Mush sniggered and nudged Blink in the ribs.

'Yeah, I'll bet you'd like that, wouldn't ya, Blink?'

'Down boy,' said Blink with a half-smile. He didn't take his eyes off Darlin', busy trying to read her lips: she stopped laughing but kept grinning. Then she said something to Frames with a quirked eyebrow, as if proposing a challenge. Frames shook her head with a smile, which quickly disappeared when Darlin' hauled one leg, then the other, onto the ledge of the bridge. She spread her arms for balance in a crouching position, before slowly rising, still grinning.

'The hell's she doin'?' said Mush, knitting his brows.

'Showin' off, I guess,' said Snoddy, a note of worry in his voice.

The three of them headed for the girls, with Blink leading the way. He started picking up their conversation:

'Okay, okay Darlin', I believe ya,' said Frames urgently. 'Please get down, you're makin' me sick wit' noives.'

'Ha, alright alright, I will,' said Darlin', bending her knees. 'I'm comin' down, honest.'

Just as she was about to step off, however, Darlin' caught sight of Blink pacing her way. Her jaw froze again, as did the rest of her body.

'Hey -' began Blink, when Darlin' lost her footing. Understandably, she dropped her low, mannish voice in favor of a shriek that cut through the background noise from the bridge. She fell backwards, dropping off the horizon line.

In one-tenth of a second, four bodies were slammed into the ledge, watching in horror as Darlin' plummeted into the dark expanse of water. White-edged waves crisscrossed over the site of her plunge, and the first thing to surface was her brown newsie cap.

'Oh God, Darlin'!' cried Frames, knuckles as white as her face. Blink, Mush and Snoddy were too shocked to speak, but stared wide-eyed and slack-jawed at the water.

Objectively, three seconds passed. Subjectively, the time after Darlin' hit the water felt endless.

'Look!' yelled Mush, breaking the excruciating suspense. Darlin's sopping wet blonde hair came up from underneath, which she threw off her face with a frantic swish of the neck. Her gasps for breath came out in opaque white clouds.

'Darlin'!' shouted Frames. Snoddy had to yank her back by her shirt to make sure she didn't topple over as well.

'Help!' came the waterlogged reply. Darlin's eyes went wide in panic as she felt herself get carried further and further away from the bridge by the strong current.

Blink jolted himself out of his paralysis by having a stupidly dangerous idea.

'Hold my cap,' he said, thrusting it into Mush's hands.

'Sure,' said Mush absently, before realizing the significance of this statement. 'Hey, wait! What are ya doin' Blink?!'

His friend was too busy kicking off his shoes to answer. He sped down to the other end of the bridge and turned the corner, jumping down the steps to the side docks three at a time and ignoring the reproaches of those he pushed past.

Before his voice of reason could get a word in edgeways, Blink clenched his teeth, put his arms out straight, and dived into the river.

For a moment, the world was dark, dense and soundless. Then:

'AH, JESUS IT'S COLD!'

Blink's teeth chattered of their own accord as he scanned the rippling water for Darlin'. His eyes locked onto her, a good twenty feet from him. He swam with the current, slicing feverishly through the murky waters.

Darlin' felt her body losing the battle against the river, using most of her energy now just to keep her head from going back under. Adrenaline pumped into her muscles like crazy, but it was burning out as fast as it came. Breathing became an increasingly exhausting task, and suddenly the thought of taking a break for a while seemed very appealing indeed…

'Darlin'!'

Her body kick started at this new sound. Her arms beat up and down to keep her afloat as she stared, in total disbelief, at the one-eyed newsie swimming towards her.

'Swim to me!' he panted between chopping waves. Darlin' unlocked a new store of energy, more determined than ever not to drown. With a deep breath, she crawled through the water until the beautiful moment when her hand closed around his wrist. In a team effort, Blink yanked her to his chest while she kicked hard to propel them back towards the docks.

He was too tired to speak again, so Blink saved his words and hooked Darlin's arm around his neck. They both fought the water ferociously.

Blink egged himself on: _just a little further, almost there, we're so close, closer than we were just now…_

Mush, Snoddy and Frames had raced down the steps not long after Blink, and were on their knees at the edge of the dock, each praying in their own way for Blink and Darlin' to get close enough.

Snoddy held onto Mush's suspenders as he stretched as far forward as possible. Blink willed his free arm to magically grow in those final seconds, just enough to close the gap.

He felt a jerk on his right, and almost cried when he saw Frames clutching Darlin's hand. It gave him the extra boost needed to reach Mush's, and as soon as that happened, he felt his legs go dead.

Relief was too small a word to describe what Darlin' and Blink felt as their friends hauled them onto the boards of the dock. The two newsies lay side by side, staring dazedly at the white afternoon sky, punctuated by seagulls.

Darlin' went into spasms as her body insisted on coughing up all the river water she'd swallowed. As it came up, she felt violently nauseous, and stumbled onto her knees to wretch bile over the dock. Frames resisted the temptation to smother her friend in a hug, opting instead to rub her back soothingly and hold back her hair.

'Yeah, get it out, that's good, hun,' she said, before heaving an enormous sigh. 'Thank _God_.'

As soon as Darlin' leaned back, done with the necessary purging, Blink threw himself forward to do the exact same thing. Snoddy grimaced.

'We gotta get 'em back to the lodging house,' he said, removing his coat and draping it over Darlin's shoulders.

'T-thank y-you.' Her skin was tinged with blue. Frames took her hands and supported her under the arms. Slowly, she was on her feet, quivering with cold.

'Blink, can ya stand?' asked Mush, kneeling by his friend, who brought his head up to nod, albeit blearily.

'Alright, well let's getcha back home.'

When Blink was fully standing, Mush put his cap back on for him.

'Keep yer head warm,' he said, almost motherly. Blink, in spite of everything, laughed.

It took fifteen long minutes to get back to Duane Street, and along the way Mush carried Blink's shoes over his shoulder. Frames kept Snoddy's coat closed around Darlin' the whole time, to hide her male clothing. The girl's long blonde hair hung dripping from her head. She looked like a drowned body summoned from the dead.

To their boundless gratitude, the fireplace was roaring when they staggered into the lodging house.

'Kloppman, hey Kloppman,' said Snoddy. The old man looked up from his paperwork and almost jumped out of his socks when he saw the state of Blink and Darlin'. 'Can ya get us some blankets and coffee? These two need it real bad.'

'Y-yes, of course,' he said, knowing to ask questions later. He slipped into his office.

The reception was deserted. Darlin' all but crawled to the fireplace, lying on her side in the billowing warmth. She closed her eyes and soaked it up.

'Thanks, Kloppman,' said Mush, taking a thick blanket from the landlord and offering it to Blink.

'You save her from drowning?' asked Kloppman, looking at Darlin' on the rug by the fireside. Blink nodded, shattered.

'You're a fool and a hero,' he declared. 'Now get outta those wet clothes before ya catch pneumonia.'

'Hey Snoddy,' said Frames. 'Can she hold onto your coat a little while longer? Just so I can dry some of her things off.'

'Yeah, yeah, go ahead,' said Snoddy.

'Thanks.' She turned Darlin' onto her back and felt her forehead with the back of her hand. 'She's warm, but there's no fever.'

'That's good, right?' said Mush. Frames and Kloppman nodded sagely.

'That coffee'll be brewed in a minute,' he said. 'You both need ta warm those young bones right up.'

Blink sank into an armchair Mush had relocated near the fire, took off his cap, his pants and shirt, and wrapped the blanket around his soaked long johns.

'Hey Kid,' said Kloppman. 'You're gonna freeze if ya don't hand those over to dry too.'

Blink cast a weary eye of disbelief his way.

'What? But…' He nodded to Darlin'.

'Don't worry,' said Frames. 'She's snoozin' away. I won't look.'

She turned around. Blink sighed, too tired to argue.

'Alright, but if someone walks in, you're doin' all the explainin'.'

Five minutes later, Blink was sat with one blanket wrapped self-consciously around his waist, and another over his shoulders. His cap, underwear, shirt, socks and pants hung over the fireplace grating.

Mush and Snoddy sat on one of the couches by the wall, not quite believing the events of the last hour.

Frames stayed by Darlin's side. The girl breathed deeply and languidly blinked open her eyes.

'Hey,' said Frames softly. 'How do you feel?'

'Almightily embarrassed,' she replied, drawing her knees up. Her bare feet rested on the old rug, and she frowned at the sensation.

'Did you take off my shoes?'

'And yer socks,' said Frames. 'They're dryin' right now. Listen, the more of your clothes we can put by the fire, the faster you'll warm up. Wanna help me help you?'

Darlin' remembered that they weren't alone in the room. Her dark blue eyes moved to the right and saw Mush and Snoddy on the other side of the room. They gave small smiles and proceeded to cover each other's eyes with their hands. Darlin' turned back to Frames.

'What about…?'

'He's dropped off ta sleep,' whispered Frames, pointing over Darlin's head. Awkwardly, she pushed herself onto her elbows and craned her neck to check for herself.

Sure enough, the newsie's good eye was closed, his breathing steady and calm in the armchair. She admitted it was now safe to proceed.

'Okay.' She sat up and shrugged off Snoddy's coat. Darlin' peeled the clingy pants off her legs and undid the buttons of her older brother's now very damp, dirty white shirt. Frames put her vest over the grating.

'Ah,' Darlin' sighed in relief as she got to unwrap her chest bindings. Her lungs and ribcage felt free to breathe easier.

Looking away, Frames shielded her friend's modesty by holding up the blanket as a screen, until Darlin' put the unraveled bandages and the rest of her underwear to one side, and took the blanket from her.

'Feel better?'

'Yeah,' murmured Darlin', wrapping the blanket around her body under her armpits, like a long shapeless dress. She sat up and ran a hand through her damp hair.

'It's alright,' said Frames to the newsies. 'You can look now.'

'Thanks,' they both said, trying to ignore Darlin's clothes next to Blink's on the grating.

'Kloppman made you coffee, by the way.'

'Aw, thank you,' Darlin' said to the kind old man as he passed her a tin cup. She drank up and felt her blood revive itself.

'Did someone say coffee?'

Darlin' almost let go of the blanket when she turned around at the sound of Blink's voice. He smacked his tongue to the roof of his mouth and shook his head awake.

At first he had no idea who the half-naked woman sitting on rug at his feet was until the memory of the river hit the forefront of his brain.

'Yes indeed, boy,' said Kloppman, putting the cup of coffee into Blink's hand and closing his fingers around it for him.

Despite the presence of four other people, the moment the two newsies shared was completely private. Darlin' carefully got to her knees, keeping the blanket up. Her long hair fell in thick strands over one half of her face, and she set the empty coffee cup down to brush them aside.

For the first time, she found the words for him:

'You saved a fool today,' she said quietly, before giving a nervous laugh.

Blink broke into a grin and slowly shook his head.

'No,' he said. 'No, you were saved _by _a fool today.'

Her cheeks tinged with pink. They got lost in each other's smiles.

Of course, because life is full of coincidences, for better or worse, this was the moment, at ten minutes past four in the afternoon, when the rest of the lodging house residents stepped into the reception.

Blink and Darlin' froze at the sound of fifteen pairs of footsteps skidding to a halt. Biting her lip, the girl turned on her knees to find, among others, Jack, Racetrack, Boots, Crutchy and Skittery gawking at them.

'Well,' said Race in an unusually high-pitched voice. '_Clearly_, explanations are in order.'

**A/N: Two long chapters in one night…c'mon, dear readers, you can spare thirty seconds to type a review for me, can't you? I personally thank every person who does ^_^**


	9. This Time We're In It To Stay

**Chapter Nine**

**This Time We're In It To Stay**

**Disclaimer: ****나는****자신의****Newsies****을하지****않습니다****. ****난****단지****내****OCs****를****/****을****소유**

**A/N: Why hello there :) Hope you didn't miss me too much yesterday, but I'm back and raring to continue the newsies' exciting adventures! Before that, however, shout-outs are in order to the awesomesauce LovesBrooklyn, arosequartz, and Nicely Nicely's Little Sister ;) **

With perfect timing, Blink and Darlin' looked at one another, then back at the newsies, before shouting:

'It ain't what it looks like!'

'I'm not even sure what it _does_ look like,' said Crutchy, mystified.

Ever the hero, Frames side-stepped to block any potential view of Darlin's under garments. The girl in question hugged Snoddy's coat to her frame as if it were the only possession she had left.

'She fell -' began Blink, standing up.

'_Strategic covering, please_,' interjected Race. Blink tied the blanket tighter around his waist while Darlin' tried to block the room out with her hand.

'She fell in the Hudson, alright?' he said, annoyed. 'I swam in ta save her. 'Scuse us fer not wantin' to catch our death.'

'That true?' Jack asked Darlin', who reluctantly met his eyes.

'Yes,' she answered in a small voice.

'Well,' said Race, as impressed as he was thrown. 'I think a little applause'd be appropriate fer the hero.'

The newsies promptly clapped. Blink tried to look modest and bowed from the waist.

'Hey!' called Mush over the noise, springing up from the couch. He looked at the girls. 'Shouldn't we tell your friends about this?'

Frames and Darlin' exchanged glances, both of which said, _oops, we should have thought about that sooner_.

'That would be wise, yes,' said Frames. 'They'll be at the Riverside shack.'

'I ain't goin',' Race said quickly. He was followed by sharp cries of the same.

'I ain't - aw, nuts,' said Dutchy, too late to the game. He headed for the door. 'Be as quick as I can.'

'Thanks, Dutchy,' chorused the other newsies. A draft slipped into the room on his way out, and Darlin' shivered.

'How'd ya manage to fall in the river, anyhow?' asked Boots, as the boys dispersed throughout the reception and assumed seats on all available surfaces. Darlin' felt incapable of moving so much as an eyelid - she had never felt this self-conscious in all her life.

'Frames didn't believe me when I said I could balance on the bridge…you can work out the rest for yerselves.'

The boys laughed, but not unkindly. Frames tapped Darlin' on the shoulder and subtly slipped her underwear inside Snoddy's coat, much to the girl's relief.

'Excuse me…sir?' she braved, getting the attention of the old landlord behind the front desk. 'Is there a room where I might, uh, change?'

'My office is all yours, young miss,' he replied. She smiled - he reminded her so much of her late grandfather.

'Thanks.' Clutching the sides of her blanket, Darlin' slowly got to her feet. Head held high, she padded away from the fireplace to Kloppman's office, exhaling when she closed the door behind her.

'Won't she -?' began Blink.

'Just wait for it,' said Frames, rolling her eyes behind her spectacles. Ten seconds passed, and then a loud '_damn it_' sounded from behind the door.

'S'okay Darlin', I've got 'em,' called Frames, gathering the rest of her friend's forgotten clothes off the fireplace grating. They felt significantly toastier.

The boys, including Blink, couldn't stop themselves from laughing again, as Frames crossed the room with the folded pile in her hands. She knocked on the door, and it opened wide enough to let a bare arm reach out and grab the garments.

'Thank you.'

'No problem hun.'

The door closed again.

Blink moved to take his own underwear off the grating, but stopped and winced.

'You alright, Kid?' asked Jack.

'Yeah, just…ah,' he grimaced again. 'My shoulder hoits.'

'Maybe ya pulled a muscle or somethin' when ya dived in,' said Mush, walking over. 'Let me see?'

Blink let the blanket around his shoulders fall away and leaned forward. With the air of someone who hasn't the faintest idea of what they're doing, Mush tentatively put his hands on Blink's shoulders and pinched.

'Yowch!' exclaimed Blink, batting him away. 'What're ya tryin' ta do, kill me?'

'Well I don't know how ta give massages, do I?'

'Just shrug it out,' suggested Jack. Blink tried, but his face screwed up.

'Nyaaahh that just makes it worse.'

'I could try.'

The boys turned back to the front desk. Darlin', now fully dressed again in (crumpled) newsie attire, stood outside the office door, her white blonde hair pulled back into a hasty ponytail with some string.

'My brother played a lot a' sports,' she explained. 'My ma used to give him massages when his muscles got sore, and then taught me how to do it for when she was busy.'

'Uh…alright, sure,' said Blink, eye darting to his still drying clothes.

Mush and Jack stepped back to let Darlin' stand behind the armchair. Blink leaned forward again, folding his arms on his knees. He tried not to think too much.

'Might hurt a little to start,' said Darlin', her expression at once very professional. Her slim hands moved down his shoulder blades and pressed down on the soft tissue.

'_Ow_,' he said as something clicked audibly.

'I warned ya,' she replied lightly. Her hands kneaded his muscles like bread dough. Gradually his face loosened up.

'Ooh,' he murmured. 'Oh _wow_…how are you doin' that, that's _amazing_…'

Unbeknownst to the masseuse and the massaged, Jack, Racetrack, and pretty much every newsie over the age of fifteen were collapsing in fits of silent laughter. Frames marched to one of the couches, picked up a cushion, and chucked it in the direction of their heads.

'Does that feel better?' asked Darlin'. Blink rocked his right shoulder back and forth with ease. He turned to grin at her.

'Lots. Thanks, Darlin'.'

'You're welcome…' she said. '…Blink.'

'Hey, uh…' said Snitch, moseying up to the two of them. 'I got this crick in my neck that's been buggin' me all week. D'ya think you could fix it?'

Twenty minutes later, and half the boys had formed a haphazard queue beside the armchair, which Blink was now out of. Frames looked on in astonishment - she knew Darlin' could give a massage, but it seemed to have become a talent of hers in a big way.

'You sure yer hands ain't magic, Darlin'?' said Race, eyes shut beatifically as she worked at his temples.

'Pretty sure,' she replied, feeling a lot more relaxed now than she had been earlier.

'It's the way they sleep, is what it is,' said Kloppman. 'These kids, I walk in to wake 'em up in the mornin's, and they'se twisted in all sorts a' strange positions, shoulders up to their ears, I tell ya…'

The Manhattan newsies chuckled at Kloppman's quintessentially eccentric ramblings.

Not five seconds later, the front door swung open to let in a wheezing Dutchy, followed swiftly by Ace, Skates, Streets, Vi, Rich and Madison.

'Where is she?'

'Is she alright?'

'There she is!'

'OhthankGodyou'realive!'

Before Darlin' had the chance to say 'eep', she was rugby-tackled to the floor by an overly relieved Skates and Vi.

'CAN'T BREATHE,' yelled Darlin' from underneath her two friends, arms pinned to her sides in a double-hug.

'Sorry,' said Skates, hopping up and extending a hand. Darlin' brushed herself off and helped Vi stand. Their eyes went to Ace, who caught her breath while giving Darlin' an ambiguous look.

'You…' she started, walking over to stand at eye-level with her fellow newsie. She grappled with the air for words. 'You…you can be a real bonehead, ya know that?'

With that, Ace pulled Darlin' into a tight hug, exhaling like a mother with one less thing to worry about.

'I know,' said Darlin'. 'I'm real sorry, it won't happen again. Sorry if you're mad.'

'I ain't mad at ya,' she said, letting her go. 'It's just if I hear one a' my goils' life was in danger, my world kinda destroys itself, ya know?'

Darlin' nodded, touched.

'Now,' Ace continued. 'Remind me again who I need to thank for savin' my friend?'

'That'd be me,' said Blink, now dressed in his dry clothes. Ace went over and shook his hand with warm eyes.

'If it weren't for you, I really don't wanna think what mighta happened. Thanks, from all of us.'

'I'd do it again if I had to,' he replied, looking Darlin's way. She blushed and suddenly became fascinated by her shoes. Frames gave Blink an unexpected side-hug.

'God bless ya.'

'Gee, thanks,' he smiled, appreciating all this attention.

Behind the large group of newsies, the door opened again.

'Hey, Dave, Les,' said Jack, grinning. 'Got a helluva story for ya today.'

'Is that so?'

A small boy at least half Ace's height zipped past her, leaping onto Jack's legs. He laughed, shaking the kid off.

'What are ya Les, a dog?'

'Just missed ya, Cowboy,' he replied in a yet-to-break voice.

'You're something of a legend in the schoolyard now, Jack,' said the voice Ace didn't recognize. She turned to face a curly-haired, blue-eyed young man in a respectable suit. He had a healthy stack of books under his arm, which instantly got her attention.

'Ha, how 'bout that?' said Jack, ruffling the boy's hair. He finally got off his pant leg and realized that there were unfamiliar newsies in the room.

'Are these boys new?' he asked. The older brother noticed too, taking in each of the girls with a vague air of intrigue. Then he got to Ace, and they spent a moment registering each other's presence. There was something different about her; there was something different about him.

'Yeah, guess you could say that,' replied Jack. Behind the armchair, Darlin' fumbled for her cap without taking her eyes off the strangers.

'For all a youse who don't know,' he said, putting an arm around his friend. 'This is David Jacobs, my right-hand man, and his little brother Les. Helped us win the strike, and still sell wit' us when they can, even in spite a' their highbrow schoolin'.'

David shook his head, smiling.

'David, Les, these are the Riverside newsies, an' their leader, Ace Heximer.'

As soon as Jack said her name, David's mouth formed a small 'oh'. His eyes went wide, but they shook hands all the same.

'You're the Ace I've heard so much about.'

Her eyes moved to Jack, who looked sheepish.

'Didn't know I was such an interestin' topic of conversation.'

'Oh, I just meant in terms of…professionally speaking, you understand,' amended David. She nodded slowly.

'Nice save.' She looked down at Les. 'Nice to meet ya.'

'And you,' he said quickly, half out of politeness, half out of mild fear. He hesitated before asking:

'Is it true? Are you really a girl?'

'Les,' David admonished. Ace took off her cap and unpinned her hair, before raising an eyebrow.

'That proof enough for you, kid?'

He nodded, in awe at this novel sight. As his curious eyes took in the other seven newsies, they all swapped glances and copied Ace, waving their hair out as quick evidence of their femininity.

'Les,' said Ace. He turned back to her. She knelt down to his level and spoke in frank tones:

'You ain't gonna tell anyone outside this room who we are, right? Not the kids at school, not your parents, not anyone. We understand each other?'

'Yes m'am.'

'Okay, people really need to stop doin' that,' she muttered, standing back up. 'In any case, we should probably be on our way back to Riverside - expect you'd appreciate the extra space.'

She took three steps before realizing that no one was following her. Frowning, Ace turned around and looked at her newsies: Streets was the only one who seemed in half a mind to go, whereas the others exuded hesitancy - Darlin' especially.

'…What?' Ace asked the room.

'Actually, Ace,' said Frames. 'I'm kinda happy to stay here a little longer. Darlin' and I, we've been talkin' wit' the guys and stuff…there's no rush, at least not for us.'

'I see,' said Ace measuredly, crossing her arms. 'Is this opinion shared by…everyone?'

'Yeah.'

'Sure.'

'I wouldn't say no.'

'It is real cold out there,' said Madison, willing herself not to look at Mush by accident. 'Wouldn't mind warmin' up for a bit…'

'Uh-huh,' said their leader. 'Now just clarify for me - is this one-off, or do you actually want to make this a regular arrangement?'

'Regular arrangement,' said Darlin' immediately. Blink smiled to himself. Ace cast her eyes at the floor, then at Jack.

'What do you say to that?'

'I say there's no harm in amendin' our little compromise, not if the majority want it.'

'Boy, this is the most diplomatic I ever seen him,' muttered Race from a couch.

'So does that mean we sell together too?' piped up Vi. 'Y'know, if we felt like it…'

Ace looked up and threw her hands to the ceiling.

'Okay, fine,' she sighed. 'Whatever. If that's what ya want.'

'Great,' beamed Darlin', squeezing the armchair corners with glee.

'This is good,' nodded Jack. He tried cracking a smile at Ace, whose expression remained exactly the same. 'Could be an opportunity to swap sellin' tips.'

'As long as my newsies are happy, that's all that matters,' she responded. He'd have to settle for that.

'Don't worry,' David said to Ace. She couldn't help but fixate on the way his eyes gleamed, like ponds full of life. 'When I first ran into Jack, I wasn't in the mood for conversation either.'

'Hey!' said Jack. Luckily, though, this icebreaker paid off: Ace gave a short laugh accompanied by a half-smile.

'So,' said David. 'What was this story you couldn't wait to tell us?'

'Gather round,' said Jack, glancing at Blink and Darlin'. 'These two'll provide the details, which I'm curious to know myself.'

As the atmosphere grew ever more communal, Ace leaned against the wall on the periphery of the newsie crowd. She found her gaze returning to this new guy, David, who struck her as someone apart from the Manhattan newsies, someone more book-smart, more sophisticated…just, more.

In the nicest possible way, he reminded Ace of her past.

**A/N: You've read it, now complete the experience by reviewing it! ;) No, but seriously, anyone who reviews I will send (purely metaphorical) cookies to. Until next time, fellow newsies!**


	10. We're a Union Just By Sayin' So

**Chapter Ten**

**We're a Union Just By Sayin' So**

**Disclaimer: Ní féidir liom Newsies féin. 'S liom ach mo OCS.**

**A/N: Thanks again arosequartz for the thoughtful review :) Hope you all enjoy!**

The following evening, a Friday, Blink walked alone through the streets of Manhattan until he found the Riverside docks, relying solely on Mush's somewhat confusing directions.

A light fog had settled on the waterfront, cooling the air and blending into the sky like watercolors. He put his hands in his pockets to warm them.

If Rich hadn't been outside the shack, Blink might well have bypassed it altogether - he watched, intrigued, as she did a sequence of push-ups on the dock. A modified pair of fingerless gloves protected her skin from splinters.

'Evenin'.'

Rich paused mid-elbow bend to look up.

'Well, hi,' she said. 'What brings ya out here? Message from Kelly?'

'No,' replied Blink. 'Just me on my own business.'

She continued her press-ups.

'Entailin' what, exactly?'

'Darlin'.'

Rich stood up and looked him squarely in the eye. He couldn't read her expression.

'Want me ta' get her for ya?' she said at last. _Phew_.

'If it ain't too much trouble.'

'Wait here,' she said, before disappearing through the doorway of the shack. Blink removed his cap and kept a metaphorical lid on his nerves.

A murmur of voices echoed inside the shack. Then out she stepped.

'Hi,' she said, surprised, but far from displeased. 'Whatcha doin' here?'

'I was, uh, just wonderin' if you'd like ta' take a walk,' Blink said, having practiced that answer several times to himself. Darlin' looked behind her shoulder.

'Well, I should check with -'

'It's fine,' said Madison, whose head appeared behind the door. Her eyes were even wider than usual.

'Sure?'

'Yeah, yeah,' her friend replied hastily. '_Go_. Have fun.'

'…Okay then,' said Darlin', satisfied and suspicious at the same time. Madison gave an innocent grin before slipping back into the shack.

As she approached him, Blink was gripped by an unforeseen crisis of etiquette: should he offer up his arm? Would that be inappropriate, especially since she was dressed as a newsboy? Unless her dressing as a newsboy made it _more_ appropriate, in which case…

'Where'd ya have in mind?' asked Darlin', offering her arm.

'…Just up the river,' said Blink. He slotted his arm into hers and felt instantly better about life, the world and the universe.

A flock of seagulls soared high above the rift between New York and New Jersey, with no particular destination in mind. The odd sailor or shoe shiner passed the two newsies, but otherwise they had the walkway all to themselves. Dying trees whispered to each other in a long row.

'How was selling today?' she asked.

'Pretty good, pretty good,' he said. 'Although I was sorry to have missed ya - I'm curious to see what yer sellin' style's like.'

'I know, I was thinkin' the same,' said Darlin'. 'But I was so exhausted after yesterday's, uh, adventure, that the goils couldn't bear ta' wake me up so early. I woke up so confused this mornin', like, 'where is everyone?''

Blink laughed.

'So Skates spotted me some papes and held out until I got to The World.'

'Ah, well that's real nice a' your pals,' said Blink. 'Kloppman wouldn't dream of lettin' us sleep one minute past six a.m.'

Darlin' giggled. It could have been Blink's skewed perspective, but to him the sound chimed in his ears like a polished church bell.

'I hope you'll be there tomorrow though,' said Blink, his pulse thumping a little harder. 'As my sellin' partner. If ya want to, of course.'

'Yeah,' she said, looking at him. 'I'd like that a lot. In fact I can't think of anythin' better.'

They both came to a natural halt between a streetlamp and a tree. Coffee-colored leaves waltzed around their shoes.

'Blink,' said Darlin' quietly. She loosened her arm from the crook of his elbow and let her hand rest on his back. She bit her lip.

'There's somethin' I wanna ask ya, but I don't want ya to be uncomfortable about it.'

'What is it?' he said, despite an underlying certainty of the answer.

'Well, it's sorta out of the blue an' all, but I'se been meanin' to ask ever since we first joined ya.'

'Yeah?' he prompted gently.

'What happened to your eye?'

Blink took a calm breath, wondering how to proceed.

'Well…'bout three years ago, there was this newsie leader called Bones. He was a menace, interested in takin' over as much territory as he could get his hands on. This was back just before Jack became our leader.

'After a while Bones' newsies decided to commit mutiny and take him out. They got half the boroughs in New York ta' help out and fight, all against this one guy. I was there in Brooklyn, when there was chaos everywhere, I mean nobody even knew who was on whose side anymore, an' I was only fourteen, caught up in the mess. The last clear thing I remember is Bones, the man himself, towerin' over me and lookin' ready to kill. His hand went for my eye…ain't gonna forget the pain any time soon.'

Darlin' stood with her hands to her mouth, horrified.

'Then I musta passed out, 'cause next thing I knew, I could only see outta one eye and had the mudda of all headaches.'

'My God,' breathed Darlin'. In the strangest way she wished at that moment to travel back through time to comfort the fourteen-year-old Blink. He nodded to himself and grimaced at the memory he normally kept in a box.

'There was this doc who gave free treatment to bums and street rats - people like us. He made sure things weren't gonna get worse, but he said I'd be blind in one eye fer the rest a' my life. By the time I got out, it was all over: the fightin' stopped when one Spot Conlon sent Bones flyin' into the East River and down to a watery grave.'

Darlin' stared.

'Wow…he _killed _a man? No wonder Ace was so noivous.'

'Yeah, no kiddin',' said Blink. He shook his head. 'The weirdest thing about that night was that afterwards, when I got myself an eye patch and started gettin' used ta' sellin' papes again, people gave me more attention. They turned it into a gimmick for me.'

Darlin' tilted her head and, driven purely by sympathy, reached out a hand. Blink flinched.

'Oh, sorry, sorry, I didn't mean ta'…' she mumbled.

'No, it's alright,' he said. 'I just ain't used ta' people touchin' that part a' my face. Most of the time they're too afraid a' what might be underneath.'

'I ain't afraid,' said Darlin' softly. More slowly, more delicately, she raised her hand to the left side of Blink's face. He kept his head still for her, despite wanting to shiver when her cool fingertips touched his cheekbone.

Bracing herself for the unknown, Darlin' gently lifted the eye patch. She couldn't stop her mouth from falling open, but she managed to contain the gasp that tried to escape from it.

His left eye was still there, whole, but ghostly white. Darlin' found it difficult to believe that it was once the twin of Blink's other, vibrant blue, eye.

'I know,' he said. 'I'm sorry.'

'No,' she said with an earnestness that startled him. They seamlessly held hands. 'It's a part of you, so it's beautiful.'

Darlin' paused to remove her newsie cap, without taking her gaze away from Blink. The icy blonde tresses of her hair fell lightly against her neck and glowed in the streetlamp. Words could not achieve what she wanted to express next.

Darlin' tucked her cap under her arm and leaned closer to Blink. She rested her hands on either side of his face and kissed the corner of his blind eye. Blink was too shocked to do anything but stand there with his jaw open.

Darlin' felt something electric run all the way to her fingers as she went on to kiss the corner of his good eye. Her heart was spinning like a globe.

She moved her hands from his face to his neck. As naturally as breathing, Blink pulled her closer, arms around her waist and back. Darlin' stared into his eyes, both of them, and then at his lips.

When they kissed, it was like the light of the streetlamp burned into their hearts. It was dizzying and stable; calm and tempestuous; stretched out over time and over much too quickly.

Blink and Darlin' stopped to look at each other, but they didn't dare let go of the other's body. She put her mouth next to his ear and whispered:

'Fay Bletchley.'

'What?' he said, just as quietly. The last thing he wanted to do was break the mood with his confusion.

'That's my name,' she said. 'You're the only newsboy in the city to know.'

Blink stared at her, chest rising and falling. It only felt right to say what he said next:

'Fay…would ya do Louis Ballatt the honor of bein' his goil?'

**A/N: So…that's quite possibly the most romantic scene I've written for anything ever in my life. When you review (yes, not if, but when) go e-a-s-y on me there ;) **


	11. Friends of The Friendless

**Chapter Eleven**

**Friends of The Friendless**

**Disclaimer: Tôi không Newsies riêng. Tôi ch****ỉ**** s****ở**** h****ữ****u thuốc uống ng****ừ****a thai c****ủ****a tôi [bit of Vietnamese for you today]**

**A/N: Ever more thanks to be doled out to arosequartz, Nicely Nicely's Little Sister and LovesBrooklyn. If any other newsie readers are out there, please make your fine selves known! :D**

'This joint ain't half bad,' said Streets in between bites of a pastrami on rye.

'Yeah, it's charmin',' said Madison, appreciating the wallpaper patterns of Tibby's diner. She, Streets and Vi were sharing a table and a lunch break with Racetrack, Mush and Skittery, having decided arbitrarily that morning to sell in the same neck of the borough. Streets was only swayed into tagging along by Racetrack's guarantee of a great lunch.

The place was bustling on that Saturday afternoon with a mixture of people from the lower and middle classes of Manhattan. Provided that they behaved appropriately, the manager tolerated the frequent presence of the newsies, who in other establishments wouldn't have a hope of getting past the front door, because they brought good business.

'How many papes ya got left?' Skittery asked Mush. He counted the thin pile next to his plate.

'Ten. You?'

'Nine.'

'I got eleven,' said Race. 'At this rate we'll be finished up in time for a couple rounds a' poker. You guys in?'

The two boys exchanged the same wary look.

'Maybe,' said Skittery. 'I'll keep an eye out fer how many unlucky things happen to ya this afternoon. Then we'll see how confident I feel.'

The girls chuckled, albeit in their lowered pitches.

'Would ya be up for joinin' us?' asked Mush, glancing at Madison. She half-pouted, half-smiled.

'Sure, sounds like somethin' to while away the hours.'

Mush grinned.

'I'se curious,' said Race. 'About yer nickname.'

'Mine?'

'Yeah,' he said. 'Madison. Any relation to the president a' the same name?'

'Ha, I wish,' she said. 'No, I chose 'Madison' 'cause, uh, I grew up real close to Madison Avenue.'

'Really?' said Race, taken aback, before muttering, 'classy.'

She gently swirled her bottle of Coca Cola before taking a thoughtful swig.

'What about you,' said Skittery. 'Do they call ya Vi 'cause…I dunno, ya like violets?'

'Unless yer _name's_ Violet,' said Mush, keeping his voice down. 'Is it?'

Vi gave a coy shake of her head and spooned pasta into her mouth.

'Nah. I play - I used to play violin.'

'Seriously?' said Racetrack. The more time he spent around these Riverside girls, the more he realized how little he, or any of the boys, knew about them.

'I'm damn good,' she said, relishing the freedom to say a word her parents would faint at.

'Sometimes Vi serenades us all in the shack,' piped up Streets. 'Oh, and before ya even _think _about thinkin' about it,' she added, eyes needling Race's, 'I'm called Streets because it was the first thing I could come up with. Not for any other reason, capisce?'

'Capisce…' Race replied, unable to recall the last time he was pre-emptively scolded for a joke.

'No prizes for guessin' why they call ya Racetrack,' she said dryly. He shrugged, grinning, as if to say, 'what can ya do?'

'They call ya Skittery 'cause…I dunno, ya get real noivous?' mimicked Vi. He was quick to shake his head.

'Noivous, me? Pah, not on yer life. I'se called Skittery 'cause I run fast and light, like fallin' leaves.'

'Since when was you so poetic?' jibed Race.

'Mush?' questioned Madison, before Skittery could react. The boys snickered.

''Cause his heart goes all mushy around the ladies,' quipped Race, before getting socked in the arm. Madison laughed with them, but good-naturedly.

The six of them paid up when the bill came, and, their appetites replenished, stepped back into the autumnal sunshine.

'Right,' said Race. 'Let's see if we can't sell the rest a' these before the afternoon's out.'

'Central Park'll be busy in weather like this,' said Mush. Madison followed his lead along with the others.

'Don't be ignorant of today's events, ladies an' gentlemen!' she shouted into the passing crowds. 'There's still time to buy an edition a' The World, only a penny a pape! Read all about it -'

'Here, I will take one.'

She turned to the woman's voice behind her. Even before she looked up from her coin purse, Madison caught the scent of lavender-infused linen. She knew it. She knew her.

When the middle-aged woman's eyes met her daughter's they both found themselves frozen in time. Madison's heart jumped so far it threatened to hit the ceiling of her skull, her hand still clutching the paper.

'God above…' her mother whispered. Madison felt her breathing twist in panic. She said nothing, but stared past at the newsie closest by: Mush. As if God himself turned his head on his behalf, the boy glanced Madison's way and locked onto her petrified expression. He frowned and began to walk over.

'I…' The woman, both a stranger and the most familiar person in Madison's world, reached out a disbelieving hand to her face. 'Is this a dream? I-is this my Alda?'

Hearing that name for the first time in months was the magic word that made Madison drop all her papes and flee. Mush at first didn't know what to do, but then he went with instinct and ran after her.

'Wait!' cried her mother. 'Come back! Stop that newsie, that is my _child! Alda!_'

Madison weaved and stumbled through the oblivious strollers in the park, aiming for the gate. She swung to the right and sped down the sidewalk like rabid dogs were after her. Footsteps pounded behind her. The panic shot up tenfold.

A hand grabbed her wrist, and Madison almost let a scream loose, when she saw it belonged to Mush.

'Scare me half ta' death, why dontcha,' she panted while smiling with her eyes.

'You got a lotta explainin' ta' do,' he replied, looking over his shoulder.

'Later, I gotta hide first.' She ducked just in time to avoid a hanging branch. 'We bein' followed?'

'Aw, damn - that bull don't look like he's after anyone else!'

Madison glanced back. Sure enough, a police officer had just emerged from the park gates, blowing his whistle.

'Cut across here!' she hissed, pulling Mush across the main road at a diagonal and narrowly avoiding getting run over by intersecting carriages. Having to move around them slowed the copper down considerably, and by the time he reached the other side of the road, the two newsies had vanished from sight altogether.

Straight ahead of him was a pea-green bookstore, its door propped open to reveal an aisle that led right to the front desk. Only the bookseller was present.

With a gruff exhalation, the officer shook his head and turned back in the direction of Central Park - like so many of the runaway-sightings he got called to chase up, this one had reached a dead end.

It never occurred to him that there might be more bookcases past the store's till. Mush and Madison sat slumped at the bottom of the one furthest back, taking shallow, fiery breaths.

'Oy vey…' she groaned, putting her face in her hands. She wanted to unstitch the image of her mother from her mind, but every detail, from the coin purse to her long blue skirts, from her greying hair to her tired eyes, demanded to be experienced in an endless loop.

'It's alright, we're safe,' breathed Mush. He put a comforting arm around Madison's shoulder and patted it. 'Just gotta…wait it out 'til the coast is clear, yeah?'

'Yeah,' she said, putting her head back against the hard book spines. Her throat burned. 'Oh Mush, oh that's shaken me up bad.'

'It's true what she was yellin'?' he said quietly. 'She's yer mudda?'

'Yes.' Madison closed her eyes and shook her head. 'I shoulda known this'd happen some day. It's all our worst nightmares, but I guess every day we just keep pretendin' the possibility don't even exist.'

'Ya mean you're all runaways?'

'Yeah,' she said. 'How else would ya make sense of eight ragtag newsgirls livin' in a fishing shack without runnin' water?'

An excellent point. Mush nodded.

'I'm gonna have to lie low fer a few days,' she said to herself, eyes scanning the air. 'If she sees me again…'

'Maybe she won't, not ever,' said Mush. 'Think about it - ya ran away, what, a good couple a' months ago?'

'Yeah.'

'Well, New York's a big city. Huge. An' yer mudda don't know where ya live now, or where ya get your papes from, do she?'

'No, I guess not,' conceded Madison. Her breathing was steady now.

'Then think about how long it could be before ya even got a chance of bumpin' into each other again. I mean, just now, that's rotten luck. But even if it happens a second time, at least ya know you can get away. And that I - we'll - be here ta' look out for ya.'

She turned to Mush with a small smile, amazed by how good he was at being reassuring.

'Ya mean that?'

''Course I do,' he said, squeezing her shoulder. 'It's like Jack told us durin' the strike: if we don't stick together, then we're nothin'.'

Madison gazed at him, her smile mirroring his.

'You're a good guy, Mush,' she said. 'In case nobody ever told ya before.'

'It's what I aim for,' he replied, kissing her on the cheek. As she remained sat on the floor, briefly stunned, he got to his feet and extended a hand. Madison stood, her heart giddy from experiencing an entire spectrum of emotions in such a short space of time.

**A/N: As usual, I hope you enjoyed that ^_^ Currently this story has 13 reviews…question is, who'll be the ones to boost that number to 15? Shout-outs for all who do!**


	12. Extry, Extry

**Chapter Twelve**

**Extry, Extry**

**Disclaimer: ****Я****не****являюсь****владельцем**** Newsies. ****У****меня****есть****только****мое**** OCs. **

**A/N: Thank you Nicely Nicely (and so forth :P), LovesBrooklyn and arosequartz!**

Mush and Madison went via Manhattan's backstreets to the Duane Street lodging house, by which time it was close to four o' clock. They found the reception teeming with newsies, four of whom were particularly relieved to see them back:

'Jeez louise, thank god you're alright,' said Vi, wrapping Madison in a hug.

'We thought ya got nabbed or somethin',' said Skittery.

'Nah,' said Mush, stealing a look at his partner in crime. 'We got away from the bull just fine.'

'What even happened back there?' asked Streets. 'All's I saw was the back a' yer heads.'

'I'd rather explain later, if that's ducky wit' ya,' said Madison. She tried to ebb away the worried look on her friends' faces by rapidly changing the subject. 'Now how 'bout that round a' poker we promised ya, Racetrack?'

'Oh, sure, sure,' he said from a corner of the room, seated next to a boy Madison hadn't seen before. 'Who else is in?'

'Count me in,' said Spot, visiting for the day.

'Yeah, I'll bite,' said Mush.

'So will I,' said Swifty.

'And me,' said Streets after some deliberation.

'Ace?' said Madison. Her leader was standing halfway up the stairs, studying a framed tapestry: 'Speak the Truth'.

'Yeah, I'm game,' she said.

The seven of them pulled up chairs around a side table they placed in the middle.

'Oh, Spot, Madison, Madison - Spot Conlon.'

'Wow,' said Madison reflexively. He smirked. 'Hi.'

'Nice ta' meet ya.'

Shaking hands with him felt very counterintuitive, like grasping a knife blade: this guy was the reason Ace's nose and cheek were still purple.

Race was about to get out his deck of cards, when Spot put out a forbidding hand.

'Uh-uh. I'll feel more comfortable wit' anudda deck, if ya don't mind.'

'Are you sayin' I rig my cards?' said Race, exaggerating his offense.

'I got mine -' said Streets, patting herself down, before deflating her shoulders. 'No, no I do not. I left 'em in the shack.'

'Very useful,' said Race.

'No worries,' said Madison. She knocked her elbow on the table and, like a lever, flicked her arm down: a red and white pack of cards slid out from her sleeve and into her palm.

'Neat,' grinned Mush. She grinned back, and they both realized that, now in the safety of the lodging house, the two of them could reach between their chairs and squeeze the other's hand.

'What is this?' said Streets, wide-eyed. 'Are you…?'

'I like havin' him around, yes,' said Madison.

'Boy do things escalate quickly around here,' muttered Ace.

'Ya tellin' me,' said Race, while Madison tipped the cards out of their pack. He gestured with his thumb to the couch. 'I mean foist we got the two blondes canoodlin' over there.'

'What?' said Blink. He and Darlin' sat on the end of the couch, her legs over his knees.

'Nuttin',' replied Race. The two newsies resumed their cuddling. It is worth mentioning that they were not the only occupants of the couch: despite their best efforts to concentrate on the leftover papes, Snitch and Itey felt equally awkward by proximity.

'An' now you two are an item,' continued Race, shaking his head à la Kloppman. 'Whatever next.'

Ace and Madison discreetly shared a glance at Streets, but kept schtum.

'Alrighty,' said Madison, shuffling the cards like a waterfall one way, then like an accordion the other. The boys were quietly transfixed.

'Where'd ya learn to do that?' asked Swifty as she dealt the cards round.

'When business in a general store is slow and you're stuck mannin' the counter, ya learn how to amuse yourself.'

'You was a shop girl?' said Mush.

'Yeah, on West 141st Street,' she said, before giving a short, harsh laugh to herself. 'Definitely can't go back there now.'

'Why?' asked Ace. 'What happened?'

Madison looked at her friend and waited to deal the last card before responding. The seven newsies swept up their lot and had a private moment of taking stock, poker faces all around. Under these circumstances Madison felt more at ease with the idea of explaining what happened.

'I, uh, ran into my mother.'

Ace and Streets immediately re-directed their attention.

'What? How?' asked the latter.

'I was about to sell her a pape in Central Park,' she replied in a calm voice, eyes still on her cards. 'She knew who I was right away, I didn't stand a chance. So I ran. Mush helped me hide. An' now we're here, safe an' sound.'

Ace knew she was keeping on a brave face, and respected that.

'Well, as long as you're okay, but don't worry - I swear on my teeth that you won't ever have ta go back. An' thanks Mush.'

'Sure, a' course,' he said, nodding.

'Oy, I'd sooner hightail it to New Mexico than go back…'

'Did someone say New Mexico?' asked Jack, who walked in through the door with David.

'Nuttin' excitin', Cowboy,' said Race, rummaging in his pockets for money. Ace watched the two former strike leaders pull up armchairs around the other newsies. Within three seconds of each other, they met her eyes and nodded 'hello'. She nodded back.

'So yeah,' resumed Madison. She pointed her arm down again and a coin purse slid out. 'I'd rather do that than ever go back to that conniving…' (one nickel on the table) '…overbearing…' (and another) '…matchmaker.'

Silence settled in their circle as she slammed the third and final coin on her space at the table. Madison breathed in and out, glad to get that out of her system.

'Ante up.'

Fifteen minutes into the game, Ace was the first to fold.

'Ai ya,' she said, shaking her head.

'Come again?' said Spot.

'That's Chinese for 'damn',' she replied.

'Didja pick that up in Chinatown too?' asked Crutchy from a spot on the staircase.

'A few words here, a few words there,' she said, turning in her chair. 'Hey Skates.'

'Yeah?'

'Jīntiān de tiānqì zěnme yàng?'

The golden-haired girl grinned from across the room. She looked out of the window.

'Yángguāng, dàn lěng,' she replied.

'Hao,' said Ace, nodding. David chuckled, intrigued.

'Anyway, I'll free up some space,' she said, standing up.

'On the upside,' said Streets. 'That's probably the furthest you've ever got in a game.'

Ace pretended to strangle her from behind. The girls laughed.

'Wait, if you're that bad at card games,' said Spot, frowning. 'Then why're ya called Ace?'

She kept her expression the same, but a filter went up over her eyes, something to keep secrets from getting out.

'For a different reason,' she eventually said. 'But that's much too complicated to go into now. Another time, perhaps.'

'O-k-a-y then,' said Spot, letting his desire to continue the game win out over his curiosity. Ace left the table and meandered over to where there was space - on the floor between David and Crutchy. The former almost instinctively leapt up from his chair, to which Ace hastily put up a hand.

'Thank you, but that's really not necessary.'

'Are you sure?'

'Hundred percent,' she said politely. 'Where's your brother?'

'Oh, Les? He's playin' with the kid newsies outside. The second he's out of synagogue he's got expendable energy coming out of his ears.'

She and the other boys laughed.

'So Ace,' said Jack. 'Ya never did tell us about what you was doin' in Chinatown.'

'Yeah, what was it like?' asked Crutchy. 'I ain't never been there before - don't know anyone who has, actually.'

'Well…' Ace hesitated, unsure how much she felt comfortable saying. She looked over her shoulder and caught Skates' eye. The girl sat down beside her friend.

'It's a dump,' said Skates bluntly.

'Worst and most fascinatin' three months a' my life,' said Ace.

'Ya wanna get street-smart fast,' said Skates. 'Then that's where ya go.'

'Remember before we got a room of our own we had to sleep in a coat closet?' said Ace, pulling a face at the memory.

'That was not fun. But it was cheap.'

'Dirt-cheap,' echoed Ace. 'Everythin' there was cheap - laundry, street food, clothes, opium…not that I tried any or nothin'.'

'Coleridge had a lifelong addiction to opium,' said David. He didn't expect the girls to react with interest.

'Really?' said Ace. 'Well I s'pose that explains a lot about 'Kubla Khan'.'

'You've read 'Kubla Khan'?' said David, on the edge of the armchair.

'Once,' she replied. 'Although I prefer readin' prose, personally.'

'I like Keats,' said Skates simply.

David slowly looked Jack's way, with a look in his eyes that said, 'am I dreaming?' Jack could only shrug at these names he'd never heard.

'Wow,' said David. 'That's…that's great.'

'I take it you also like to read?'

'Anything good I can get my hands on,' he said with verve. 'We're reading _A Tale of Two Cities_ at school. It's so much fun to read aloud.'

Ace's eyes lit up in a way Jack hadn't seen before. She sat on her knees and put her elbows on David's armrest.

'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…' she recited in a clear voice. David, delighted, joined in:

'It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…'

By now the two would-be thespians were on their feet, mirroring each other's performative gestures in an act of pure, untainted appreciation of the written word. All the other newsies, even the six still caught up in their poker game, watched with a mixture of amusement and bafflement.

'…We had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.'

They finished with a flourish of hands and big smiles.

'Isn't that somethin'?' she said.

'Yes you are,' said David, before going red and correcting himself. 'Uh, it is, yes.'

They came back down to earth and returned to their seats. Bemused, Streets, Madison, Race, Spot, Mush and Swifty returned to their game.

'I fold,' said Madison and Swifty at the same time.

'What's your favorite book?' asked David, leaning over the armrest.

'That's a very tricky question,' said Ace, wheels turning in her head. 'But if I had to give one…it'd be _Little Women_.'

'Oh yeah,' Skates nodded gleefully. 'That's a great one.'

'I haven't read that one,' admitted David.

'You're missin' out,' said Ace. 'If I had a copy a' my own I'd gladly lend it to ya. Boy, what I wouldn't give to read it again.'

'Well, if you want,' said David, glancing at the floor and back up at her. 'I got an account at the Public Library over on East 41st…We could find a copy and borrow it.'

'Really?' she said, eyes full of wonder at his thoughtfulness.

'Yes,' he said. 'I mean, if you want, there's no obligation.'

'No, no I'd like that. I'd like that a lot.' She smiled at him; he smiled at her.

Across the room, under his breath, Racetrack muttered something to Spot:

'I betcha a dime the two bookworms become an item.'

'Deal.'

They quietly spit-shook on it. Streets looked over her shoulder and back, careful not to let anyone see her cards.

'Can I get in on that?'

'On whose side?' asked Race.

'Not yours,' she replied brusquely. Mush and Spot sniggered.

'You're on,' said Race.

Soon after, Mush folded and, reluctantly, Spot too. The two Italian-Irish-Americans were the only players left. They eyed each other over their cards.

'Alright, I'm callin' it,' said Madison, the original dealer. 'Show your hands.'

'Ladies first,' said Race.

'So what're ya waitin' for?' said Streets without missing a beat. This elicited howls of laughter from the other newsies watching their game. Race's face was stony.

'Excuse me while I go die of laughter,' he said, deadpan, before breaking out into a smirk. 'Actually, Little Miss Wisenheimer, how's about we put somethin' other than money on the line here?'

'A last-minute ante?' she said with a quirked eyebrow. 'What didja have in mind?'

He leaned forward.

'Whoever loses has ta' get down on their knees an' say, loud enough for the whole lodgin' house to hear: 'I am not worthy, yer highness of poker, the great and powerful.''

Streets pursed her lips and looked at her cards again. Her face was blank as an unwrapped canvas, but inside she was dancing impishly: she had a winning hand.

'Deal,' she said neutrally.

'Alright, lay 'em down, Streets,' said Madison. She finally gave a sly grin and presented her cards to the room. Vi, Frames and Rich gasped excitedly behind her.

'Straight. Flush,' she declared. The boys hissed through their teeth. Racetrack gazed solemnly at her cards and heaved a sigh.

Streets laughed to herself as he threw down his hand with an air of defeat, but halfway through the sound turned into a shriek.

'Royal flush,' he said. He nailed her with his eyes: _take that_.

Spot, and most of the Manhattan newsies, were in hysterics. The Riverside girls gave Streets a consoling pat on the shoulder as she stared in slack-jawed horror at his Ace, King, Queen, Jack and Ten of Diamonds. He sat back in his chair and gathered up his monetary winnings.

'In yer own time,' he said with a pseudo-innocent grin. Streets let her arms hang by her sides and groaned.

'I don't _believe this_.'

'A deal's a deal, hun,' he said, lighting a victory cigar. 'You know you'd demand the exact same thing if you won.'

As much as she hated to admit it, he was right. Streets opted for the get-it-over-with-and-quickly-move-on approach. With as much dignity as she could muster, she slid off her chair and shuffled on her knees to his chair. The newsies, of both boroughs, laughed heartily. In monotone, Streets delivered the agreed terms of address:

'I am not worthy, yer highness of poker…the great and powerful. Happy?'

'As a clam,' replied Race. Streets stood up and dusted her knees off.

'Fair enough,' she said, before snatching his cap off his head. 'Yoink!'

'OH YOU DID NOT JUST DO THAT -'

Even in the midst of the newsies boisterously cheering on Race, as he chased Streets out of the lodging house, David and Ace managed to keep up their civilized conversation.

'Okay then,' he said, feeling light. 'Well, do you want to go tomorrow afternoon?'

'Sure. I'll see ya at the entrance around three?'

'I look forward to it.'

'So do I.'

As much as Skates loved the idea of touring the library too, she held her tongue. It was obvious that her best friend was making a connection (whether she was aware of it or not), and she didn't want to spoil that for her.

Jack let his eyes rest on the flickering hearth and rubbed his palms together. In one sense, he was glad for David, truly - it was easy to forget what it must be like for him, an educated, lower middle-class boy amongst working newsies, half of whose reading material didn't extend beyond the daily headlines.

So if Ace, this cryptic, uptight newsgirl was well versed enough in literature to make him happy, then their spending time together could only be good news.

And yet.

The more glances he stole at her expression, the more Jack felt a twinge in his chest, a flicker of desire for that smile on her face to be for him instead.

**A/N: Until next time, newsies…don't forget to review below! Email notifications are what I wake up to every morning, and it makes me smile this much :D **

**AA/N: (Additional Author's Note) By the way…if you can review saying exactly **_**why**_** you think Ace is called Ace, and get it right before the story's complete, then I will review every single Newsies fic you've ever written. Ever. And they'll be detailed reviews. Good luck ;)**


	13. We Both Got An Education

**Chapter Thirteen**

**We Both Got An Education**

**Disclaimer: Ik heb geen eigen Newsies. Ik bezit alleen maar mijn OC's. (Dutch…y. Hehe)**

**A/N: Well, you lot outdid yourselves - 18 reviews is a happy number :) Thanks, arosequartz!**

'Afternoon.'

Ace looked up from the Sunday pape she'd found on the corner of a white lion, one of two majestic statues guarding the entrance to the New York Public Library.

'Afternoon,' she replied, offering a handshake. He accepted, smiling, and noticed how callous her fingertips felt against his palm.

'You know ya never told me what _your _favorite book is,' Ace pointed out as they climbed the grand steps, hands in her coat pockets.

'True,' said David, thinking. 'And you're right: it is a hard question.'

'Well, no rush required. We have the whole afternoon.'

They passed the newly built pillars, designed to lend a Greco-Roman air to the library: America is new, but we've brought the knowledge of the Ancients with us.

When the two newsies stepped into the foyer, Ace's head tilted back so far she half-expected to fall over. The ceiling was easily as tall as The World's publication building, and its rectangular face was painted with murals of Heaven, of angels and cherubs in white robes and perfect skin.

'Spectacular, isn't it?' remarked David, standing next to her. They shared an expression of reverence and awe for this cathedral of learning.

David led her through to the main reading room, and at first Ace simply had to stop in the middle of the floor because she had never seen so many books in one place at any one time in her life: her eyes didn't know where to look.

'Wow,' she breathed. 'Can I live here?'

David chuckled quietly, taking in the handful of visitors (almost uniformly middle-aged white men in suits) who sat at varnished wooden desks under reading lamps, healthy stacks of journals and quartos before them.

'Hey,' he said to himself. 'I think that's…'

He put a friendly hand on Ace's arm and led her towards one of the desks. If it were anyone else, and if she hadn't been so enchanted, she would have shrugged him off.

Their shoes echoed on the spick and span floor tiles. David stood at the end of a long desk towards the back, whose sole occupant was a man in a gray suit. His jacket was draped over the back of his chair and his face was the picture of deep concentration. He didn't even register their presence until David spoke up:

'Denton?'

The man looked up as if he'd been brought out of a trance. Then his face lit up with the same grin as the one on David's - a grin specifically shared between two friends who have things to catch up on.

'David,' he said, before lowering his voice to suit the peaceful quiet in the library. 'What a surprise. Haven't seen you or the boys in a good few weeks.'

'Yeah,' said David. 'We miss havin' our star reporter around.'

'Well, you know, maybe I'll drop by Tibby's soon and we can catch up properly. Although,' he added. 'By all means, have a seat.'

David looked at Ace. She nodded in acquiescence. When they sat, Denton finally noticed her identity as David's friend as opposed to a stranger.

'Oh, this is Ace, leader of the Riverside newsies. He and his boys sell in Manhattan with us.'

Ace gave him a modest round of applause in her head. So many things could have gone wrong with that sentence. Denton studied her from across the table, and she tried not to look like she had anything to hide - she was a guy, if she said as much, so what was he looking at?

After a beat he moved on and cordially shook her hand.

'Nice to meet you, Ace. I'm Bryan Denton.'

'How d'you do,' she said.

'Denton was a huge help during the strike,' said David. 'Without his coverage we would have never rallied all the other laborers together.'

The reporter spread his hands in a gesture of modesty. The more she thought about it, the more his name rang a bell in Ace's head.

'Wait, Bryan Denton…' saying the name aloud brought the article to the front of her mind. 'Weren't you the one who covered the Spanish-American war last year?'

Denton stared at the newsie, deeply surprised and just as delighted.

'You…read my war correspondent pieces?'

'Every so often, yes,' she said. 'You got a most readable style.'

'Why, thank you, I'm flattered.'

David peered over at the various documents surrounding Denton's elbows.

'So what's all this for?'

'Oh, I'm just doing research for a feature The Sun have asked me to write, a piece to commemorate fifty years since William Bond obtained a photograph of the moon through a telescope.'

'Sounds interesting,' said David.

'And you? Does schoolwork beckon?'

'Oh no, we're just browsin' for a good, meaty tome of fiction,' said Ace.

'We'll leave you to get on,' said David with a polite nod, excusing himself and Ace from the desk. Denton waved as they wandered to the stairs.

'I'll see you soon,' he whisper-called, before getting stuck back into his work.

'That's one good connection you got there,' Ace whispered to him as they climbed a spiral staircase.

'I know, right? Makes me want to be a reporter someday.'

'Why don't you?'

They reached the alphabetically arranged shelves of novels, each encased in a beautiful spine. David sighed.

'One day, maybe, but only after something else. Like law or medicine.'

'Is that what you want?' she asked skeptically, running her fingers over the books.

'It's what'll look after my family,' he responded, searching the titles. Ace decided not to press the matter, despite knowing all too well the tone of voice her new friend had adopted.

'Okay,' she said simply. They'd reached 'B'. Ace scanned the author names further on for 'Alcott'. Elation unboxed itself within.

'I've found it.' She slid the book out from its place on a middle shelf, and stared at the gold lettering of _Little Women _like a long-lost pet, recently found. 'This is brilliant.'

'Good,' said David, before a metaphorical light bulb came over his head. 'Actually, I have an answer for you now.'

'Answer?'

'My favorite book,' he whispered. Ace followed him back along to 'D'. His fingers latched onto one of several copies of a blue book.

'_David Copperfield_. I mean, I have a lot of books I love, but this one is definitely up there with the best of 'em.'

'Ever imagined yourself as the eponymous hero?'

'I must confess I have,' he laughed, before taking his volume way down.

They exited the reading room, left the gorgeous must of old pages behind to make way for the front desk. David borrowed the books while Ace swept her gaze over the interior once more.

'Oh, if I could live here I so would.'

'If you ever do, let me know and I'll bring a picnic.'

They stepped out of the library, back into the cold afternoon, and laughed, relishing the amplification. In the process they leaned and stumbled onto one another down the steps. David took a smooth risk and linked her arm in his. It took her by surprise, but she didn't mind the closeness. She didn't mind at all. To all the strangers they passed, they were two pals larking about.

'I take it you're going back to Riverside Park?'

'Well, not in a hurry or nothin',' she said. 'But yes.'

'Wanna go back via Central Park?'

'Sure.'

They strolled past the lake and watched ducks glide calmly along the water.

'Ace,' said David, turning to her. 'Where'd you learn to read?'

'From those guys,' she said, nodding to the ducks. 'What kind of a question is that? From my parents, from my teachers.'

'Sorry. I guess…' he searched for the right words, ones that wouldn't sound too condescending. 'I guess it's just hard for me to imagine you having parents or teachers at all. The only person I know you as is Ace, right here and now.'

'Ain't that enough?' she said, but not harshly.

'It's just that - look at Jack and the Manhattan newsies,' he explained. 'I'd be amazed if someone like Racetrack or Boots ever told me they'd studied books, that they cared as much about knowledge as you do.'

'Knowledge isn't what I crave,' she clarified. 'So much as learnin'. There's a difference.'

'Granted,' he said diplomatically.

'I did go to school every Sunday,' said Ace, recalling blackboards, notebooks and inkwells. 'An' my parents read to me every night when I was a kid. My birthday present was always a trip down to the bookstore on our street.'

She smiled to herself, experiencing this snippet of the past in its nostalgic beauty.

'That was the highlight of every year, I tell ya. There's nothin' quite like the smell of a new book, all your own.'

'You're right,' mused David. 'There isn't.'

The sun was going down already. An old woman in tattered clothes scattered breadcrumbs for the pigeons.

'Ace, do you know why I asked you out today?'

'Why?'

He looked her in the eyes.

'You're one of the most unusual girls I've ever met. But it gives you character, like…like…' he searched the air for words. '…like an onion.'

'Excuse me?'

'No, it's a good thing,' he chuckled at himself. 'Every time I talk to ya, it's like another layer's peeled off - there's somethin' new to learn…onions.'

Ace looked at him wryly, and they both fell about laughing. She was quickly warming to this boy's oddball, best-intentioned sense of humor.

'Well, in any case,' she said when they'd calmed down. 'Thanks.'

'Listen, I don't suppose you'd, uh…'

'What?'

'Tomorrow night,' he said. 'After selling, would you be interested in, um, joining my family for dinner?'

'Your family?' repeated Ace, slightly thrown.

'Yeah,' said David, dividing his glances between her and the leaf-covered ground. 'I mean, the first day I met Jack, he came back and had soup with us. It's only fair that I extend the invitation to the other 'Hattan leader.'

She appreciated that. David was quick to clarify:

'Of course, I'd ask you even if you weren't the leader. Even if you were, y'know, just some girl I met in the street. Well, okay not exactly like that, but -'

'I get it,' she grinned. David looked relieved to be interrupted, and then pleasantly surprised when she added:

'I'd be honored.'

**A/N: Confession time…I thought I'd done my research properly, but halfway through writing this chapter I realised that, while the New York Public Library was technically in existence by 1899, it didn't actually finish construction until 1911…Oops. Then again, this is also a world where singing newsboys break out into contemporary dance moves, so I guess I'm allowed some leeway here :P Keep on reviewing, lovely people ^_^**


	14. Alone But I Ain't Lonely

**Chapter Fourteen**

**Alone But I Ain't Lonely**

**Disclaimer: **אני לא **Newsies **שלו**. **יש לי רק הגלולות למניעת ההריון שלי**.**

**A/N: Sorry if this chapter gets posted at some absurd hour - I've suddenly become snowed under by a small avalanche of summer work (YAY) and so don't know how much time I've got to do these chapters. **_**Don't worry, though - they will happen!**_** It's because of reviewers like, say, arosequartz, that I keep going ;)**

Ace walked up the side aisle of the church. Wine-colored patterns with golden edges spilled in pools of stained glass light onto the stone floor, which she broke with her silhouette. Her footsteps echoed to the high ceilings as they had done in the library, surrounded by reverent silence.

She slid into a pew close to the front, just behind a pillar, and let her mind become calm, infused with the scent of tealight candles. She put her elbow on her knees and her head in her hands.

'Okay God,' she said without speaking. 'Time for you and me to have a serious conversation.'

Ace did this approximately once a week, when she'd finished selling. The family Sunday Eucharist was no longer open to her, despite the best-intentioned sermons of preachers claiming otherwise. They weren't the problem - the congregations were. Newsies were at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Regular families would frown upon them in their dusty, worn clothes. They would frown upon her. So she found time to come alone, to sit and think by herself.

Or so she expected.

As she came to the end of telling God all that was on her mind, moving her lips to silent words, Ace was suddenly aware of another person next to her. There was a familiarly musky, spicy cologne in the air.

'Amen,' she whispered. Taking her time, Ace sat up again and looked to her left.

'How long have you been sitting there?'

'Long enough to admire the windows,' whispered Jack, glancing at a glass angel against a flat red sunset, above the lettering, "Ye seek Jesus Christ of Nazareth. He is risen; he is not here."

'Did you follow me here?'

'I might've,' he replied, with a charming half-smile. 'Kept callin' yer name, but you walk too fast.'

'My apologies,' she said, rolling her eyes. 'So what d'you want?'

He shrugged.

'Just yer company.'

She blinked. That was not what she'd anticipated.

'Now why,' she whispered. 'Would Jack Kelly, former strike leader, want that of all things?'

'Because we got off on the wrong foot, Ace,' he said, stretching out his arms on the back of the pew. 'An' I wanna start wit' a clean slate, y'know?'

'Alright,' she said, not knowing where he expected this conversation to go.

'Good,' he said, nodding. 'So d'you come here often?'

'Just for some thinkin' space,' she said. They both watched the still, polished golden eagle at the wooden pulpit, poised mid-flight.

'Is your own head not enough?'

'Not in this city,' said Ace, sighing. 'A church is just about the only place where you can hear yourself breathe. That's nice to have once in a while.'

'Yeah,' said Jack. 'I know what ya mean. Durin' the strike I was kinda all over the place. Just when I'd thought a' one thing, everyone'd be askin' what to do next.'

'Well, ya got through it in the end.'

'An' thank God for it,' he said with genuine gravity. Jack looked at her. She was calm, but not out of stoicism: this was Ace at rest.

'I was there that day, y'know.'

'You were?' he said, taken aback.

'On the edges a' the crowd, mind,' she said, casting her eyes to the kneeling cushion that hung under the pew counter. 'Skates an' I had barely been outside Chinatown for a two months, but word got round one a' the laundry joints that every child worker was rallyin' outside the gates a' The World, to take a stand against the giants of the city. Who in their right mind would miss somethin' like that?'

'Ain't that funny,' he murmured. 'Didn't even know each other an' you was in that same square all along.'

'Just with about a thousand other people in between,' she said with a smirk. 'But pretty much, yeah. Certainly made me an' our mill friends think more highly a' the newsboys.'

'Well good,' he said, before frowning. 'Wait, your mill friends?'

'Yeah,' said Ace, still looking down. 'The Old Treesmith Mill. Skates an' I shared a work station.'

'I didn't know you worked in a mill.'

'Well I don't no more,' she said. 'Good riddance to it, is what I say.'

'Is that why ya went ta' live in Chinatown?' asked Jack. 'To get away from the job?'

Ace put her hands on either side of the pew seat, her eyes deep in thought. Eventually she met his gaze.

'The job was only half the problem.'

'What was the other half?'

As soon as he asked the question, Jack regretted it. He knew it only took a handful of sentences to tip Ace back into a steely coldness. Which is why he was so thrown when she responded, softly, with one word:

'Life.'

He wanted to ask her to clarify, but Ace continued before he could.

'Y'know, Jack, I was in a real bad place in Chinatown. Skates and I were runnin' outta money, didn't know where we'd go next, how we'd survive. But - an' I ain't just sayin' this - I walked away from those crowds, that day you guys won the strike, with bottled inspiration. You dared to remind the men who rule this city that we matter, an' I can't tell ya what a difference it made to see that.'

'An' so ya formed your own newsie group,' concluded Jack. Ace nodded.

'It was excitin'. Still is,' she added, almost fondly. 'A whole new path.'

'Listen, Ace,' said Jack. 'I'm sorry 'bout what I said last week, after the meetin'. It wasn't fair for me to make assumptions about what you and the goils were willin' to give up.'

'Thanks Jack,' she said, touched.

'An' besides, who am I to lecture about the future?' he said, watching rays of setting sun shift into each other. 'For so long I dreamt about movin' out west. Just a few more dollars, a little more time breakin' my back, just until the strike was over, an' then I'd be outta here.'

'But…' Ace prompted.

'But when it was over, Roosevelt an' I had that chat I told ya about. Strange thing was, he didn't tell me nothin' I didn't already know. Just repeated back everythin' I said I was plannin' to do once we got to the train yards. But as soon as I heard it said back to me, I realized how empty it sounded.'

'Empty?'

'I mean compared to what I had, what I _have_, right now, here in Manhattan. I got friends like bruddas, a bed to sleep in, just enough food to eat, an' a reason to be: I'm a newsie. What was I gonna do by myself in Santa Fe? Work on a ranch? Behind a bar? It'd be the same workin' away under the same sun, but without my best pals.'

'The dream was a nice distraction from the everyday,' supplied Ace. 'But the everyday turned out to be better than the dream.'

'Yeah,' he said with a smile. 'Exactly that. Life is odd like that.'

'It's not so unusual,' sighed Ace. 'The future's a very comforting place to leave all your troubles. Until of course ya can't leave 'em there any more.'

'You ever had a dream, Ace?'

'Jack,' she murmured, leaning in. 'It'd be a whole lot easier to tell you what my dream ain't: to be a wife with children.'

As hard as it indeed was for him to picture Ace with a baby, kissing some faceless husband on the cheek, Jack still frowned.

'Really?'

'_That_ I am sure of. As for what I actually want in my future, the answer's nebulous at best.'

'Neb…'

'Vague.'

'Oh, right,' he said. 'So…why not?'

'Why don't I wanna be like that?'

'Yeah.'

Ace paused to put the reason into words as best she could.

'I simply do not see the appeal. I…to be perfectly honest wit' you, the idea scares me.'

She stared at Jack, eyes searching in his for the answer to her next question:

'Why? What d'you think about it? Bein' a father, a husband, y'know.'

'Actually,' he said, running a hand through his hair. 'The reason I asked was to see if ya could shed some light on why _I _don't want that kind a' life either.'

'You don't?' she said, a change coming over her face that he couldn't quite decipher.

'No,' he said, before deciding to admit something substantial to her, something he'd had trouble even discussing with the newsies. 'In fact that's sorta the reason that…did Dave ever tell ya he's got a sister?'

'Um, no,' said Ace, suddenly remembering she was having dinner with his family in just a few hours. 'No he didn't.'

'Well, we got to know each other the same time I met David. Once the strike was over, we were together.'

'Oh?' said Ace, her expression neutral.

'She's a sweet girl, a real lady,' he said with sincerity. 'An' right until August, we were real happy.'

'…What happened?' asked Ace in the following silence. Jack cast his eyes to the ground and brought one arm to rest on the pew counter. It still put a dull ache in his heart to revisit the memory, but he explained nonetheless:

'One day we were sittin' on the rooftop a' her and David's building. I don't even remember what we were talkin' about, but somethin' I said suddenly made her tell me she loved me. And…well, I said it back. But I didn't mean it.'

Ace watched his face as the past played out in his mind.

'All of a sudden it was like someone had thrown cold water over my head,' continued Jack. 'It hit me that Sarah, she was picturin' our future as husband an wife, wit' kids and a place of our own, forever set.'

He turned back to Ace.

'I'd never stopped to think that we might like each other, a lot, but be so…wrong for each other when it came to what we wanted at the end of the day.'

'So what did you do?' asked Ace, despite the outcome of the dilemma being quite obvious. Jack shook his head.

'I was a real coward at first - started makin' excuses for not bein' around her, stallin' in case one day I woke up and wanted the same thing she did. But I knew that wasn't gonna happen. So I sat down wit' her one day and we had a real long conversation.'

'How'd she take it?'

'Better than I expected,' conceded Jack. 'She wasn't mad. There were some tears, but hey, when you're breakin' a girl's heart in front a' her, it's inevitable.'

Ace said nothing. She waited patiently for him to finish.

'Anyway, we both understood in the end that it wasn't gonna end well for us if we carried on pretendin', so I said goodbye, and that was that.'

Well, almost. Jack left out the fact that David refused to speak to him for a solid three days after it happened, or that it took an entire month for things to get completely back to normal.

'Have ya seen her since?' asked Ace.

'A couple a' times,' said Jack. 'Things are still…uncomfortable between us, but David says she's movin' on, slowly.'

'And you?'

Jack didn't answer right away. He noticed for the first time since sitting down how close his other arm, laid out on the back of the seat, was to Ace's shoulder, how close her face was to his. A priest appeared from behind the altar and stopped at their pew.

'I'm ready for somethin' new,' he murmured.

'Excuse me, boys,' said the priest. Jack and Ace broke their stares. 'I do not mean to impose, but if you wish to have a conversation, I suggest you do it outside the church - others are trying to pray.'

'Of course, father.'

'Sorry, father.'

The priest nodded, and watched them until they were out of the doors.

Once they were standing in the chilly blue-gray afternoon, Jack and Ace looked at each other, trying to pick up where they left off and failing in the attempt. Ace's eyes landed on a large clock face on a building front to the left.

'I should go,' she said, drawing her coat lapels closer. 'I'm havin' dinner with David an' his family tonight, an' I need to get ready.'

'You are?' said Jack, doing a double take. 'When did he ask ya that?'

'Yesterday, when we went to the library.'

'Oh,' said Jack, his shoulders deflating a little. 'Alright. Ya know how to get there?'

'I'm meetin' him at the lodging house, actually,' said Ace. 'He's walkin' me from there.'

'Right,' he nodded. 'Guess I'll, uh, see ya later then.'

'Yeah, guess ya will.' With a small parting smile, she turned around and walking in the direction of Riverside Park. Jack put his hands in his pockets and quietly kicked up some leaves, before heading back to Duane Street.

**A/N: Long chats ftw ;) If you enjoyed that (or if, alas, you didn't), then click that review button and share your thoughts. Until next time, newsies!**


	15. Trapped Where There Ain't No Future

**Chapter Fifteen**

**Trapped Where There Ain't No Future**

**Disclaimer: Nie jestem właścicielem Newsies. Mam tylko moje OCS.**

**A/N: First, thank you LovesBrooklyn and arosequartz. Secondly, Stardust: WOW. You are a gold star reviewer by anyone's standards. I kept getting review after review and it honestly made my entire day, oh my word… :D Also, you made a good guess about Ace's name. Keep digging and you might get there… *****cryptic face*******

'Dave?' called Jack. 'Dave.'

'Hm?'

'You're gonna wear out the rug.'

'Oh.' David hadn't noticed how long he'd been pacing the lobby for.

'What are ya so noivous for anyway?' asked Itey from the couch.

'I don't know, I just feel like I've forgotten something, or that I might say something stupid.'

'Is she gonna turn up in newsie pants?' asked Mush. David shrugged blankly.

'I guess so. Just gotta hope we both keep her cover. Although,' he said, being fair to himself. 'Did a pretty good job around Denton.'

'Wait, you saw Denton?' said Racetrack. 'When?'

'He was at the library doing research. Didn't suspect a thing.'

'Really?' Race looked skeptical. 'For a reporter like him, that's lucky.'

'Yeah, well…' David shrugged again. From the other side of the room, Kloppman peered over his desk out of the open door.

'Looks like one a' you boys has a lady guest.'

'Oh,' nodded David, before frowning. He glanced at the other newsies, and before he could repeat the word 'lady?' he saw some of their jaws drop.

When he turned to face the entrance, so did his.

Ace stood by the front desk, first looking at him, then over her shoulder, and then back at him.

'Did a ghost just glide by or somethin'?'

'Uh, no,' replied David, slowly grinning. 'It's just I wasn't…I didn't expect you to -'

'To look like a woman?' she finished, glancing at her clothes. They were all that remained of her old life at home: a long black skirt, recently dusted off; a white, unruffled blouse, slightly creased; a green stone pendant with a silver chain. In one hand she held a yellow fan, ink-brushed with outlines of a small fishing village somewhere in China.

Ace's brown hair was pulled back, but this time not confined to a newsboy cap. Instead, two strands were kept loose to frame her face.

Make-up had been a challenge. Ace had no intention of letting on that her eyes were currently finely lined with soot, or that the blush in her cheeks was the result of many hard, good-natured pinches.

'Aren't you worried about being recognized?' asked David, unable to stop staring.

'Why else would bring this along?' she replied, smoothly shielding her face with the fan before closing it up. David laughed in his strange little way, amazed.

'Well,' he said, spreading his arms. 'You look just…I mean really…'

'You're a knockout,' supplied Jack from the back of the room. Ace noticed him standing there for the first time. Most of the boys' heads nodded in agreement.

'Thanks,' she said, looking at the floor.

David did up the buttons on his jacket, grabbed his hat, and offered up his arm.

'Right, shall we?'

'We shall,' said Ace, smiling. The two of them vanished around the corner of the lodging house.

'Well,' said Specs on behalf of the newsies. 'Someone knows how to clean up good.'

David and Ace walked down Manhattan's streets for ten minutes before they reached the Jacobs' apartment building. David led her up the tenement stairs, on which three young siblings sat playing jacks.

'Here we are,' said David, arriving on the third floor. Ace watched him get his keys out and tried not to feel so anxious. As soon as the door opened, she assumed the usual mask: be still, be neutral, and observe.

'David?' came a voice from the left. 'Is that you?'

'Yes Mama,' he replied, closing the door behind himself and Ace. A middle-aged man looked up from his newspaper on the circular dining table. He noticed Ace immediately with a welcoming, if surprised, smile.

'Why hello,' he said, getting up. 'You must be David's friend.'

Ace nodded with a polite smile back, saying nothing. A woman with her sleeves rolled up and an apron around her waist emerged from the small kitchen's workstation.

'Do excuse me, I was just checking on the potatoes,' she said. David put a hand on Ace's back and got halfway through his next sentence before finally realizing exactly what he'd forgotten to plan for:

'Mama, Papa, this is…'

In the following second-and-a-half he turned to Ace, face frozen. To his instant relief, however, she was quick to speak:

'Grace.'

'Grace,' repeated Mr. Jacobs, shaking her hand. 'It's a pleasure to meet you. Won't you have a seat?'

'Thank you.'

'David, could you lay the table please?' asked Mrs. Jacobs, returning to the task of dinner. He nodded.

'Be right back,' he said to Ace, who turned as a chair was pulled out on her right.

'Hello,' said the other brown-haired, brown-eyed girl, her smile as sweet as butter. 'I'm Sarah, David's sister.'

Ace shook her hand and smiled mechanically. Inside, she was thrown for a loop - this was Jack's girlfriend not so long ago and now, for the sake of etiquette, Ace had to act as if she was completely unaware of the fact.

'You're Sarah…' she said quietly. 'David's told me a lot of good things about you.'

'Really?' she said, grinning at her brother, who delivered plates around the table. 'I've taught him well.'

Ace laughed, slightly more at ease.

'Ace?'

The three of them turned to Les, who had just pulled up a chair. He elbows just reached the table.

'Of course you already know my little brother,' said David, before adding, at the sight of his parents' and sister's puzzlement: 'Ace is a nickname the newsies sometimes call her.'

Ace sent him her signature wry look: _nice save_.

'Oh, that's very cute,' said Mrs. Jacobs, a pot of roast potatoes between two tea towels. 'We're having baked fish with this, I'll just get it out of the oven.'

'Sounds good,' said Ace, keeping her fan in her lap. Sarah laid a curious eye on it.

'Is that a fan?'

'Yes.'

'Do you mind if I…?'

'Um, sure, please,' said Ace, passing it her way. Sarah unfolded it carefully and examined both sides admiringly.

'Oh my, it's beautiful,' she said, turning it in her wrist like a lady of blue blood. 'Where did you get it?'

'From a little market stall in Chinatown,' she replied. Mrs. Jacobs paused in her serving.

'Chinatown? Why…I didn't know it was…is it safe to go there?'

'I hope you had a chaperone with you,' said Mr. Jacobs, concerned.

'Oh, of course,' lied Ace. 'My father took me there every once in a while, just to explore.'

'To explore,' repeated Mr. Jacobs softly. He raised his eyebrows as if to say, 'how very unorthodox.'

Thankfully, this line of inquiry stopped when David's mother doled out the fillets of fish. Ace and the Jacobs tucked in.

'This is very good,' remarked Ace in between mouthfuls. She kept reminding herself to keep her elbows off the table and sit up straight - old habits die hard.

'Why thank you, Grace,' said Mrs. Jacobs. 'All it takes is a little bit of lemon juice and a garnish of herbs. We grow our own on the rooftop.'

Ace nodded, half-interested. She tried to match Sarah's pace in eating so that she wouldn't be the first or the last to finish.

'So Grace,' said Mr. Jacobs. 'What does your father do?'

'Oh, he's a carpenter,' she said, not intending to give any further details. 'David told me you work in the glass factory over in the Bronx?'

'I do indeed. I don't know whether you're aware of this, but during the strike that my son helped to lead -' (he and David exchanged proud smiles) 'I broke my arm in an accident and was laid off for two months.'

'Oh dear.'

'Thankfully the other workers pestered the factory to give me my job back once I was healed. And it just so happened that David gained a new circle of friends out of his paper selling.'

'Every cloud has a silver lining,' said Sarah.

'Exactly,' said Mr. Jacobs. Ace smiled and nodded, smiled and nodded, smiled and nodded.

The conversation moved to something a neighbor had said, then small domestic queries: David, we need to mend that hole in your sleeve, and does Les need his socks darning again?

As Sarah went around clearing the plates, Mrs. Jacobs asked Ace a question she hadn't even considered would come up:

'Remind me how you and David know each other?'

'Oh,' said David, for lack of anything else. 'Um, well…'

'He sold me a paper one day.'

'Really?' said Sarah. 'How funny.'

'Yeah, it was,' continued Ace, as if it were a casual truth. 'He has very good manners. We soon got talking about all sorts of things - current affairs, literature…and now here we are.'

She said it lightly, but in her head, Ace wasn't actually sure what 'here we are' even meant.

'Literature and current affairs,' said Mr. Jacobs. 'You're very interested in these things?'

'Immensely,' said Ace, her smile more sincere than it had been all evening. 'Every day there's somethin' new to learn about the world. One day I hope to see more of it.'

'Where do you have in mind?' asked David.

'As many places as possible,' said Ace, a whimsical enthusiasm to her answer. 'Britain, France, Spain, Japan, South Africa…once the war's over, that is,' she added, grimacing at what a mess the Boer War was turning into. The Jacobs family chuckled.

'And perhaps once your children have grown up to leave you with enough time to do all that,' said Mrs. Jacobs. Her husband laughed. Sarah, Les and David laughed. Ace did not.

'My…children?' she said, as if it were a foreign word.

'Well, obviously not _just_ yet,' qualified Mr. Jacobs. 'But if I may, you are seventeen? Eighteen?'

'Seventeen.'

'Yes, well, in a year or two, you'll probably be a newlywed with a baby on the way,' said David's mother, matter-of-factly. 'It's very nice that you dream of seeing the world, but sometimes those dreams have to come later.'

David felt the air change in the room when he glanced Ace's way - her face was tense and white. His parents remained oblivious. Mr. Jacobs looked from his son to their guest, in a markedly unsubtle manner.

'Do you mind my asking if there are any…suitors currently asking for your hand, Grace?'

She combined her hard-as-nails stare with a gleeful smile.

'None whatsoever.' She sipped the last of her water. Sarah evidently mistook this reaction to be sadness masquerading as contentment, because she patted Ace's hand and said:

'Don't worry, I'm sure a lot of gentlemen would love to marry someone so well-read.'

Ace coughed, having come close to spitting her water back up.

'Excuse me,' she murmured, rubbing a hand over her chest. David saw the way her other hand gripped the seat of her chair so tightly that her knuckles were white. He decided to follow his intuition and intervene.

'Uh, Mama, Papa, I think maybe it's time I escorted Ace - _Grace_, home. It's quite late.'

'Are you sure?' said his mother, looking from David to Ace, who was quick to nod in agreement.

'Yes, that's a sensible idea,' she said, standing up and pushing her chair in. After a breath, she straightened up and felt calmer.

'Mrs. Jacobs, you are a wonderful cook. It was an honor to meet you all.'

'You're more than welcome to return any time,' said Mr. Jacobs, standing up to shake her hand across the table.

'Nice meeting you, Sarah.'

'And you,' she said, waving. As Ace turned to follow David out the door, she ruffled Les's hair.

'See ya around, kid.'

'Bye Ace.'

'Ace - the nicknames these children give each other…'

She didn't hear the end of Mrs. Jacobs' sentence, as the door fell shut. In the hallway Ace couldn't stop herself from breathing a sigh of relief.

'Are you alright?' muttered David. They began walking downstairs.

'Oh yeah, yeah,' she said. 'Thanks.'

'You seemed a little…reserved,' he said tactfully. Ace sighed.

'I'm sorry David. I didn't mean to come across like that.'

'Oh, I don't think my folks noticed at all,' he said. They reached the front door and stepped out into the dry, cold night. 'But I did. What's wrong?'

They lingered outside the closed tenement-building door. Ace folded her arms.

'I just don't like talking about my life plans, that's all. Especially with people I have only just met, lovely as they are.'

'But why?' persisted David. 'I mean, I know you're a newsie and a runaway, but…surely even you wanna settle down one day and find a good husband, start a family.'

The stare she gave him was hard without being harsh - it was weary.

'No, David. I don't. I don't dream about becoming a mother, I don't dream about surrendering my life to raising children. And as for marriage…'

'What?' he asked as she left her thoughts suspended. Ace tried to decipher her own meanings.

'David, I…please don't get me wrong on this matter. I am not intimidated by the concept of marriage, to someone I truly love and care about and could happily spend the rest of my life with.'

'Then what are you so afraid of?'

'Well, when I was still living at home, the part about true love didn't really concern my parents as much as finding me a husband, any husband, anyone sufficient to do the job, if you will.'

'Is that why you ran away?' he said. The hardness in her eyes gradually disappeared.

'Yes,' she said. 'Yes, I ran away because last year, for the first time in my life, my parents didn't understand me or what I was trying to tell them. And bein' perfectly honest, I don't think anyone else would either.'

'What do you mean?' asked David, closing the gap between them so they could share some warmth.

'I don't know how well I can explain this, although,' amended Ace, 'the girls know. Essentially, it's like this…'

She clasped her hands together and looked at the sky, stars glittering behind sweeping gray clouds. When Ace turned back to David's blue, attentive eyes, she knew how to give her explanation:

'Stability is a great comfort. I don't fear that at all. But I do fear the kind that will slowly choke you to death, and in my eyes, that is what an arranged marriage would do to me.'

'Okay,' said David, nodding slowly. 'And…if you really loved your husband?'

'Well even then,' she said, melancholic frustration scratching at her throat. 'Even then I just don't think it would work, practically. David.'

She looked right into his eyes, willing him to understand and yet not be hurt.

'I've come to realize that, if I may be so frank, the thought of lying with another person…it makes no sense to me. In fact from what I've heard happens on a woman's wedding night, the idea is downright nauseating.'

David couldn't help but go slightly red.

'If I could marry someone without any obligation, legal or otherwise, to consummate our love, then believe me, _I would_. But the way my parents, my old friends, our neighbors, kept implyin' and insinuatin' that I'd have to 'submit to my husband' in that physical way…David, I have never been so terrified in all my life.'

Her hands were on his shoulders, pleading.

'Does that make any sense to you at all? Because my parents, when I dared try to tell them how I felt, just treated me like someone on the edge of insanity. Do you think I'm insane?'

There was a long moment of silence, during which David's eyes never left hers. Gently, he covered her hands in his and moved them around his neck. The space between them closed completely as their lips met.

In that sliver of time, 'Ace' and 'David' temporarily ceased to exist. Their personalities were submerged in a wave of warmth and depth, like the core of a flame. When they stopped, they looked at each other like two amnesiacs. David was the first to say something:

'You're not insane, Ace. It's just…' While they did separate, his hands stayed closed around hers. A sad, almost hollow laugh echoed from the back of his throat. '…It's just a damn shame you don't feel destined for marriage.'

Ace felt a sharp, sour guilt in her heart, like a raw lemon.

'Oh, David…I'm sorry…'

'No, don't be, don't be,' he said, running a hand through her hair. His eyes were shining, but he followed her lead and put on a brave face.

'You are a wonderful man,' murmured Ace, making him look at her when she said it. 'And damn you if ya ever forget it.'

'Thanks,' he said with a small smile.

'Like I said, the idea of lyin' with anyone…no matter how clever or kind or beautiful they are...makes my blood run cold. Please promise me you won't take this personally.'

'Alright,' he said softly, swallowing down the lump in his throat. 'I promise.'

They broke their shared gaze to embrace in a hug.

'We're still friends,' said David, not as a question.

'You're much too good a friend to let go,' said Ace, rubbing his back. They stood apart from each other to regain composure. David drew in a deep breath of night air and made himself smile, which helped.

'Ah, who'd have thought, eh? Ace is actually Grace…'

Ace pulled her shoulders back and raised an eyebrow.

'Oh David,' she said with a complex smile. 'That's not my name.'

'…Huh?'

She glanced back up at his apartment's third floor windows, firmly shut.

'Sorry to have to put a charade on top of a charade, but I've gotta keep my tracks covered all the time. For all I know, your parents run in the same circle of friends and neighbors as mine. If my name came up in conversation, I'd be done for.'

'I see…' he said with a frown, having been reminded all too well of the Francis Sullivan/Jack Kelly debacle.

'Okay, Ace-not-Grace, d'you wanna head back to Riverside?'

'Ya don't have to walk me all that way, David,' she said. 'Just as far as the square'll do me.'

'Are you sure?' he asked, looking again at her feminine clothes. They started off back towards Duane Street.

'I don't wanna inconvenience you - it's a cold night. An' besides, don't forget you're walkin' next to the girl who gave Spot Conlon a bruise the size of a horseshoe on his chest.'

'Good point, well argued,' said David. They looked at each other again and swapped grins, this time most assuredly as friends.

The street across from the Jacobs' apartment building looked deserted in the light of flickering street lamps. About a minute after Ace and David walked away, someone else edged into the road, watching them until they were out of sight.

He didn't make out a word of their hushed conversation. But the kiss, the intimacy, was all he needed to see for Jack Kelly to feel decidedly, and overwhelmingly, heartbroken.

**A/N: Poor Jack…I actually felt so bad for him, the fictional character, as I wrote that last sentence. In other news, ****I'm close to 100 visitors, and that's great :D. You guys are so great - in fact, we're ALL great ^_^**

**AA/N: Holy frick this chapter is my longest yet at over 3000 words 0_o I think that deserves a review or two...don't you? [yay, rhymes]**


	16. For a Dreamer

**Chapter Sixteen**

**For a Dreamer**

**Disclaimer: Jag gör inte egna Newsies. Jag äger bara min OCs.**

**A/N: Well send me back in time and call me Denton…this story's hit 100 visitors! :D Thanks arosequartz, Stardust, and all you other super newsie readers who have been loyal to Even The Score so far. **

Rich took off her cap as soon as she was inside the shack, and flopped onto her bunk.

'Ow,' she groaned, feeling the boards creak through the thin mattress. 'These beds…'

She languidly turned her head to the right, watching the others: on either side of Rich, Frames sat cross-legged with her tattered Bible while Madison brushed out her thick hair; Vi tuned her violin with as much care as a mother would give to her baby; Darlin' quietly scrubbed at a mud spot on the knee of her pants; Streets and Skates were engaged in a game of Go Fish underneath the windowsill, on which Ace was sat.

'You okay there, Ace?'

'Yeah,' she said, her accompanying sigh belying the answer. 'Just thinkin'…' She turned to face the shack.

'Was Cowboy actin' strange today, or am I just imaginin' that?'

Skates glanced up from her cards.

'No, you're right. This mornin' he seemed less…talkative. Just collected his papes an' went off by himself.'

'Exactly,' said Ace. 'He only said hi to a few a' the boys, but not one of us. What's that about?'

'Dunno,' said Darlin' with a shrug. A smile crept into her face. 'But speakin' of boys…'

'Oh yeah,' said Rich, sitting up straight. 'Spill.'

'Now?' said Ace, as if too exhausted to recount the previous night.

'C'mon,' wheedled Streets. 'We was in a rush this mornin' and you promised we'd hear all about it after sellin'.'

'Alright, alright,' said Ace, rolling her eyes. 'So I showed up…'

She depicted the Jacobs' apartment for them as best she could, complained about the questions that came her way, and then found herself having to explain who Sarah was.

'Huh,' said Madison. 'That's kinda awkward.'

Ace nodded vigorously, before going onto the conversation with David. Her cheeks flushed red when she got to the kiss, to which the rest of the girls practically flew through the ceiling.

'_What_?' squeaked Skates. 'How have you kept this from us for a full twenty-four hours?!'

'Was he good?' asked Madison.

'Yes,' said Ace, as if judging the taste of a cupcake. 'But don't get excited - we're stayin' friends.'

'Aw,' said Streets, her shoulders drooping. 'But why, Ace?'

''Cause we got conflictin' life aims,' she said, sliding off the windowsill. She sat on her own bunk in the middle of the girls. 'I mean, the poor guy, I couldn't pretend ta' like him back an' then just break his heart later anyway.'

Frames closed her Bible, put it back under her pillow, and sighed.

'You're sure it wouldn't work out between the two of you. Ya do go nicely together.'

'I know,' said Ace. 'But…two people can like each other a lot and still be wrong for each other at the end of the day.'

The image of Jack murmuring those words, in the light of stained glass, swept across her mind like a curtain as she said them too.

'Well, at least you can still be friends,' said Vi, patting her friend's shoulder. 'I still can't believe Sarah though - her and Jack? I just can't see it.'

'How can ya even try and see it?' asked Ace. 'Ya don't even know what she looks like.'

'From the way ya described her personality, I don't have to,' replied Vi. 'I can see why they'd fall apart down the line.'

'So who could ya see him with?' asked Ace.

Seven faces turned to her, all wearing the same expression of disbelief that she was genuinely asking this question.

'What?'

'Um…_you_,' stated Streets. Ace blinked, her feelings tumbling inside her like objects on an overturned table.

'Excuse me?'

'Ace, there's a time and a place for puttin' yer feelings in a box,' said Streets, standing up from her cards and putting her hands on her hips. 'Now is not it.'

'What are ya talkin' about?'

'It's a very easy, yes-or-no question: do you think you and Jack should be together?'

Ace opened her mouth but no sound came out. Skates made an amendment:

'Better yet, do ya _want_ to be with Jack?'

Their leader swallowed dry air. One half of her heart was trying to get the answer out, and the other half trying to keep it locked in. The first half won:

'Yes,' she said in the softest possible voice.

'What?' whispered Madison.

'…Yes. I do.' Ace stared straight ahead. Admitting the truth like this felt as painful as taking the bandage off a wound, and just as liberating.

'Ace!' squealed Darlin', beaming. She launched into a side-hug, which did a good job of shaking Ace out of her bewilderment.

'This is so exciting!' said Skates, patting her hands together.

'What are ya gonna do?'

'Do?' Ace looked at Rich.

'Well ya can't just sit there with that revelation, ya dolt,' she said, getting off her bunk. An arm pointed in the direction of the door.

'Are you suggestin' I go all the way to Duane Street?'

'Yes,' chorused the girls.

'To tell him how I feel?'

'Yes!'

'Right now?'

'_Yes!_'

Ace stood up and, flustered, reached for her cap.

'…Well I guess that's what you're supposed to do in these situations,' she said to herself, unable to tell if her sudden shivers were from cold or nerves, or both.

'You can do this, Ace,' said Skates, a hand on her arm. 'Go out and get him, already!'

Ace nodded. Without another word to stall on, she put one foot in front of the other, and then repeated the action ten times until she was standing outside on the dock. She glanced back at the girls, still dazed, and laughed, in absurdity and anxiety and adrenaline and many other things.

Her shoes pounded against the dock boards as she broke into a jog, and then a sprint. She was running on instinct and very little else.

When Ace cleared Riverside Park, she caught sight of a passing trolley. Her heart soared - she swung onto the back and held on tight.

…Thirty seconds in, and Ace realized the carriage was going about as fast as a wandering cow.

'Well _clearly_ this ain't gonna work,' she said to herself, before taking a deep breath and jumping right off again.

'Heya fellas,' said David, sauntering into the bunkroom. 'Kloppman said you were up here.'

'Heya Dave,' came a dozen different replies.

'Hey Jack,' he said, eyes landing on the hatless cowboy leaning by the window. He unhurriedly turned his head and nodded. David frowned, but before he could ask what was wrong, the interrogations began:

'So…' said Mush with a cheeky grin. 'How was yer date last night?'

'My date?' It felt strange to call it that. 'Uh…it was good.'

'C'mon, that ain't an answer,' said Blink, elbows leaning over his top bunk. 'Give us details, Dave.'

'Look, there's honestly not a lot to tell you,' said David, putting his hands up. 'She met my family, we ate dinner, they asked some questions, she gave some…fabricated answers.'

'Pretendin' ta' be somebody she ain't?' supplied Skittery.

'In a way,' conceded David, leaning against a post. 'It was pretty weird, though, seein' that side of her. Although, we did call it a night when my pop asked if there were any 'suitors' in her life.'

David shook his head. The boys chuckled.

'Let me guess,' said Snitch. 'He gave you a look when he asked it.'

'It was soembarrassing,' said David. 'I mean, Pop, seriously, one date and you're hintin' at marriage already? No wonder Ace left home.'

This got Jack's attention. He stayed silent, but faced the room and listened attentively.

'What, she don't wanna get married?' said Mush. David shook his head, trying not to sound disheartened.

'No. We had a long talk about it once we were outside the building.'

Cold sweat on her brow and on her back, Ace finally slowed down and stopped, panting, outside the lodging house. She forced herself to get calm and get her breathing back to normal, wiped her forehead with her cap, smoothed down her hair, rolled up her sleeves.

'Okay, here we go,' she muttered to herself. 'Once and for all.'

Ace strode into the lobby, and skidded to a halt. It was completely empty. This was not something she'd planned for.

'Wha -'

'Can I help ya, son?'

Ace jumped inwardly at the appearance of Kloppman from underneath the front desk. His eyes, still surprisingly young, sparked with recognition.

'Oh, it's you…Ace, is it?'

She nodded, heart thudding. Kloppman pointed up the stairs.

'They're all in the bunkroom. Want me to call 'em down?'

'No, no,' she said hastily. 'I'll just go up, if that's alright.'

'Suit yourself, although,' (she stopped mid-step) 'they've been up there fer a while now, in some group discussion, I don't know about what.'

'Okay,' she nodded, a sense of foreboding creeping over her skin. Cautiously, Ace climbed the stairs, placing tiptoes at the edges of the steps where they wouldn't creak.

She could hear the boys' conversation clearly by the time she reached the top step. Down the short hallway was a washroom to her left, and the bunkroom on her right. Ace flattened herself against the wall, praying to God and Heaven that for now she could stay unseen.

'No,' came David's voice. 'We had a long talk about it once we were outside the building.'

'And…?' Racetrack sat on the edge of his bunk, impatient for details.

'…And she said the thought of marrying someone her parents set up for her scares her.'

'Ace, scared?' said Boots, raising a skeptical eyebrow. 'Nah, that girl ain't scared a' nuttin'.'

Ace couldn't not smile.

'It's true,' said David. 'Marriage, at least in the traditional sense, scares her. Having children would scare her. Having…'

'Havin' what?' asked Blink. Ace felt her throat seize up. No. He wouldn't tell them, would he?

'Uh, never mind,' said David. _Phew_. 'Anyway, the point is, Ace and I, we're just friends.'

'Man,' said Snoddy, sounding disappointed. 'An' I thought we was gettin' a good story tonight.'

For the first time, out of nowhere, Ace heard Jack's voice. Her limbs tensed up.

'Wait a second, whaddya mean 'just friends'?' he said heatedly, before he could stop himself. 'You kissed her.'

'_You what?!_' yelped Blink, almost falling off his bunk.

'Davey-boy,' remarked some of the newsies, leaning out to slap him on the back in congratulations.

'How could ya skip over such a vital point!' exclaimed Race.

David didn't react to any of this - he was too busy staring at Jack.

'…How did you know that?'

'Well, I…'

'Did you _spy on us_, Jack?' said David, scandalized, without waiting for an answer. 'Why?'

Ace kept listening in, so shocked her emotions suspended themselves in mid-air.

'I wasn't spying,' muttered Jack.

'Then what were you doing?' said David. ''Cause last time I checked, a private conversation between two people wasn't subject to an audience from a third party!'

'He sounds like Denton when he's mad,' Bumlets whispered to Itey, who nodded in agreement.

For a long second, David and Jack looked at each other in stony silence. Ace strained to hear.

'I think I know what's goin' on here,' piped up Crutchy unexpectedly. He heaved himself off his bunk and hobbled over on his crutch, acting as peacekeeper. With a simple, honest look on his face, he said the word on everyone's minds:

'You're jealous.'

Jack gawked at the younger newsie. This was one of those very rare times when he found himself at a loss for words.

'What?' he said hoarsely.

'There's no shame in it, Jack,' said Crutchy. 'So long as you're honest about it. You thought David and Ace were an item, an' it bothered ya. Right?'

Jack found himself nodding. David sighed and let his annoyance go.

'Well I can put your fears at rest, Jack: yes, Ace and I kissed…but we decided we just work better as friends. We want very different things from life and it would hurt us both if we tried to pretend otherwise.'

'Okay,' said Jack, crossing his arms and re-shifting his thoughts. 'Okay, so I was a little jealous. I'm sorry, Dave. I shouldn't have been there.'

'Apology accepted,' said David with a small smile. They briefly hugged it out.

'Still,' said Dutchy. 'It's a shame you two called it off before it even started.'

'Well, I hate to admit it, but there was always a part of me that doubted we'd work,' sighed David, before adding, almost off-handedly: 'She's much more your type, Jack.'

'Wait, what?'

'Don't you think?' asked David, frowning. When Jack couldn't find an answer, Racetrack, Skittery and Crutchy all exchanged looks of exasperation.

'Cowboy, are you blind or what?' said Race. 'I'd go so far to say you're perfect fer each other.'

'…Ya think?'

'Haven't you listened to anything I just said?' exclaimed David. 'Jack, you should have been there in the apartment last night - Ace was practically rhapsodizing about how much she wanted to see the world, travel, learn new things. She's not interested in settling down. She isn't…she isn't Sarah, Jack.'

You could have heard a feather fall to the floor in the silence that ensued. With every passing second Ace seriously wondered if the boys could hear her shallow breathing.

'I know,' said Jack at last. He closed his eyes and ran his hands through his hair. 'I just…Dave, I don't know. I ain't thought about this properly before. I'se just felt lots a' different things without a clue what to do wit' 'em.'

'Well,' said Crutchy quietly. 'What're ya thinkin' right now?'

'I'm thinkin' I don't wanna hurt nobody again, myself included.'

'Aw, but Jack,' said Blink. 'You an' Ace'd be so good together.'

'So good,' echoed other newsies.

'You're both as smart, stubborn, tough, an' brilliant as each other,' declared Skittery, jumping down from his bunk. 'You're like two flames that are real bright by themselves, but together would spark an' make a strong fire.'

Everyone in the room titled their heads at Skittery.

'Well that was bizarrely poetic,' said Race. Skittery shrugged.

'He is right, Jack,' said David. 'Although…'

'What?' everyone picked up on the uncertainty in his voice.

'Well, there's something else Ace told me.'

Ace shut her eyes and inwardly winced. Her false sense of security was broken - he really was going to tell them all. Fantastic.

'I don't quite know how to put this,' he said, willing his cheeks not to go red. 'But there's another, more specific reason why Ace is pretty averse to marriage.'

'What's that?' asked Jack, wanting his friend to spit it out already.

'She's terrified of, uh, what happens on the wedding night.'

'…Oh.'

'Terrified?' repeated Racetrack. 'That's kinda…odd.'

'I know, I'm still trying to get my head around it,' admitted David. 'From what I understand, she just doesn't ever want to do it. No interest at all. So…' he looked at Jack. 'I think if you really want to be with her, you need to ask yourself if you're okay knowing she can't ever…give all of herself up to you.'

The next round of silence was the worst for Ace. All she had to go on were voices and the creaking of floorboards, but she had no idea of the boys' body language or facial expressions. Her heart sank as she waited for Jack to respond. This was a mistake, a big mistake, she should just turn around now and go back -

'I don't care.'

Everything stopped.

'Really?' said Race with an air of disbelief. Inside, Ace was on a rising cloud.

'Yeah,' said Jack, nodding. 'Yeah, I can handle it. Not getting' to see her body ain't gonna kill me - I mean, I fell in love wit' _her_.'

'Look how much he's growin' up,' chuckled Race, before doing a double take. 'Wait a minute, you what?'

'You what?'

At the sound of this breathless, phantom voice, the atmosphere of the entire bunkroom switched faster than an electric light. Jack, David, and the other dozen newsies, stared at the other end of the room as Ace slowly appeared from behind the doorway. She stood on the threshold, mirroring their exact state of speechlessness.

**A/N: Cliff. Hanger. Mwahahaha.**


	17. And The Fear Is Gone

**Chapter Seventeen**

**And The Fear Is Gone**

**Disclaimer: Alright, alright, ALRIGHT, sheesh, I'll do it the proper way…I do not own any of the rights to Newsies the film. Any and all rights pertaining to the script, lyrics and characters belong to Kenny Ortega, Alan Menken and Disney. My OCs are my own. There.**

**A/N: There was at least one typo on that last chapter and I felt ashamed: it's 'tilted', not 'titled'. Silly me. Also, I kept trying to put in asterisks to break up the scene changes, but wouldn't let me… :| Oh well, in any case, here we go…!**

The bunkroom was not exactly vast, but to them, the distance between Ace and Jack stretched further than the Brooklyn Bridge.

He was the first to break the palpably awkward silence.

'…How long have you been standin' there?' asked Jack, with the voice of someone woken up in the middle of the night. Without having to think twice about it, Ace replied:

'Long enough to admire the windows.'

The newsies subtly exchanged looks to see if anyone knew what on earth that was supposed to mean. Slowly, Ace took a few steps into the bunkroom, stopping at Boots's and Tumbler's beds.

'Y'know, you're a real good actor, Jack,' she said softly, brushing hair out her face. She braved looking up from the floor right into his eyes. 'But even you ain't that good.'

David, standing so close to Jack, desperately wanted an excuse to make a swift exit. Fortunately, Crutchy sent a look around the room.

'Hey, fellas…we got that thing we need to do…that ain't in here…'

'Oh, oh yeah the _thing_.'

'At the place.'

'With the people an' the stuff…'

All the newsies, save for Jack and Ace, disappeared from the bunkroom faster than water down a drain. She couldn't help but grin to herself.

As the last one out, Racetrack took something of a risk and squeezed Ace's shoulder. When she didn't punch him in the nose, he said:

'Go get him.'

Ace nodded in a half-amused way. He left. The air felt easier to breathe now that they were the only two in the room.

'What a pair we are,' she said, shaking her head.

'Ya got that right,' said Jack, walking towards her. 'What have we been doin'?'

'I don't know, Jack,' she said, throwing her arms up to the heavens. 'Although you were right in more ways than one: I don't know what the future looks like from here.'

'Does anybody?' he said quietly.

'Why didn't ya say anythin' before?'

'I'm guessin' for the same reason you didn't,' he replied. ''Cause I was scared.'

'Jack Kelly, scared?' said Ace, raising an eyebrow.

'Ace, you an' Sarah are totally different people,' said Jack, raising a hand to touch her face before putting it back by his side. 'So...why am I so afraid the same thing's gonna happen wit' you as wit' her?'

Her dark brown eyes shone in a way he'd never seen before.

'You just are. That's how things work, it's natural. But then again…' she unfolded her arms. 'If people used that as an excuse every time they found someone, then I guess nobody'd ever fall in love.'

'You are smart, ain't ya,' said Jack with a warm smile.

'Yeah, I'm just r-e-a-l-l-y bad at takin' my own advice.'

'Two newsies who love in the moment, but not the future,' mused Jack. The sunset was changing the sky to a river blue. 'Whaddya say to that, Ace?'

'I think,' she said, gazing at his face and letting the moment crystallize. 'That whatever this is, Jack Kelly, we're gonna make it damn brilliant.'

Like a magnet to metal, they embraced, both realising just how long they'd been waiting to experience this. Her face rested next to his, warm skin on warm skin. She ran her fingers through his soft brown hair, he brushed a thumb over her cheekbone.

When they tilted their heads and kissed, Jack's heart shot out of New York and soared over the Grand Canyon. Ace's heart ignited in an ice-cold fire that scattered flakes of silver ash up and down her skin. Eyes closed in bliss, it was the perfect length of time, the perfect feeling, the perfect moment.

Well, at least until:

'Damn it, I'm tearin' up over here!'

Ace and Jack came back down from starry space to look, dazed, at the huddle of newsies in the doorway. An emotional Skittery shielded his eyes with his hand; Swifty gave him an awkward pat on the back in consolation.

'So am I,' chimed in Race sardonically. 'But on the inside, you understand.'

Ace and Jack felt the other's shoulders shudder as they cracked up laughing. Less than two seconds later, there was a thunderous clatter of footsteps on the staircase. The newsies parted like the Red Sea to let in the seven other Riverside girls, frantic and thoroughly exhausted.

'Did...' Streets began, before taking an enormous gulp of air and holding up a hand. She collapsed against one of the bedposts and sank to the floor, clutching at a stitch in her side. The others were similarly out of breath.

'Did we…just…miss the…best part?'

'Aw _man_,' exhaled Skates, disappointment all over her face. 'We almost got…run over by a…by a horse just to get here!'

'Oh I'm sorry,' said Ace, rolling her eyes. 'How very thoughtless of me.'

'But it's alright,' said Jack, looking back at her. 'I'm sure we can give ya an encore.'

A chorus of overjoyed squeaks sounded when Jack kissed Ace for a second time. Half the newsboys covered their ears; they all laughed.

'Okay, I am a genius,' announced Dutchy for no immediately obvious reason. He put up his hands to frame the two newsie leaders.

'Look - it's the _Ace _and _Jack_ of hearts! Get it? Get it?'

'Good one, Dutchy,' chuckled Snipeshooter, letting him revel in his wordplay.

While the girls flocked to Ace to congratulate her, Streets stayed back and swerved on her heel. She caught Race's eye with an excited grin. Blink and Mush weren't the only ones to swap mischievous glances at what could very well happen next.

'Hey Race,' she said, sidling up to him. He cast a wary eye on her.

'What...?'

Streets raised her eyebrows and held out an open palm.

'I believe ya owe me a dime.'

**THE END…**

**A/N: …**_**Or is it**_**? ;D**

**AA/N: No but seriously, I can't believe how much I've written in the last fortnight. The only thing more mind-boggling than that is how every day I keep getting such nice reviews from all of you. They really make me so happy, so even if you're reading this story about five years after it was first posted, please review anyway, because who knows, you might well get a response! ^_^**

And now for a little bit of **trivia!** Yeah, this is something I do on my longer stories, kind of like a DVD extra…for text. Anyway, enjoy the following randomness:

'How We Made The Tables Turn' and 'This Time We're In It To Stay' were originally going to be one chapter. But then I realised that would have been crazy-long.

Louis Ballatt was Kid Blink's actual name IRL.

Every event that made a news headline in this story genuinely happened in October 1899.

As some of you have been observant enough to pick up on, every single chapter's title is either a Newsie lyric or quote from the film.

In earlier drafts, Mush and Streets were going to get together, but by Chapter 3 Madison's character just felt much better suited to his, so that was changed.

When Ace and Skates speak Chinese to each other in 'Extry, Extry', the dialogue is *roughly* as follows: 'How's the weather today?' 'Sunny, but cold.' 'Good.'

In 'If The Life Don't Seem To Suit Ya', Ace calls Jack by his name for the first time, rather than 'Kelly' or 'Cowboy'.


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